AdamInColombia

New Livejournal for Europe

2008-05-25T10:10:15Z

I set up a new livejournal account for my time in Spain/Europe - adamendonde.

Adam

FUCK YOU AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU

2008-01-03T02:40:47Z

Dear douche bag hipster fucks.
Just reveal yourself now. You know who you are. Those of you who feel uncomfortable around people who really do things - who feel intimidated by them - you sometimes don't even know how to fake it - It's obvious you don't know shit about what you claim to care about and stand for. How does it feel to watch everyone else move ahead and get things done while you are still just standing on the sidelines?

I'm sick of future yuppies who I know in ten years will be the pieces of shit they claim to despise. I'm sick of people always talking about how they are committed to something and then, well....not even being able to put in the bare minimum amount of effort to actually at least try to create a soloution. Fuuuckkk - just get the fuck out of my face. If you arn't into shit, don't say you are. Why don't you just go smoke some weed, play some video games never doing shit with your life, talking about shit you don't have the least knowledge of - and stop wasting my time - and dragging down people who really are trying to make a difference. I'm not in this for fucking social networking, this isnt the "radical" version of fucking I-Bar. I'd rather work alone with a few people I know I can count on then waste my time repeating and repeating the same old shit to people - Having to work with people who arn't even able to take initiative to do anything without having to be guided - directed. Go wander around in a fog somewhere else and stop slowing down people who are actually doing something.

Anarchist? Activist? My ass - Do you even know what those words mean? more like a fucking pitiful loser who has nothing - who has to attach their identity to someone else's - latch on to the work of someone else who sacrifices and takes initiative and then say "Look, I'm a part of this!" because they really arn't a part of SHIT. WE do this, WE do that! Just peg on your name, show up for social hour, and leave - never lifting a finger to ever do SHIT - never offering to ever do SHIT. What else do you have to do?? Go get fucked up and end up in the same shitty life a few hours later? It's not like your life is actually going anywhere - It's not like you actually have anything else to do that means anything, even to you!

What a fucking joke -a bunch of fucking turds claiming to be revolutionaries. You arn't a threat to shit. You're a fucking asset to the system you claim to be against. Either get off your ass and do something of get the hell out of the way.

If you arn't now you never were.

Adam

El fin de semana

2007-09-03T16:48:00Z

Last Saturday was my last English class before I leave. It was only me and Juan who went because Daniel had to work and Mariangelica had to study. We cut the kids lcass short half an hour because neither Juan nor I know how to teach kids and we just get frustrated....the adult class though is really enjoyable for me. We taught some of the contractions (I'm, they're, we're, they arn't, he's) and then had to explain the dirfference between the word "John's" as in the two different meanings in sentences like "John's bicycle" and "John's my friend". English is really confusing. Anyways, then we taught how to conjugate verbs in the present tense (I run, you run, we run, they run, etc...) and that was pretty much it. After that Juan and I went to a show to meet up with Diana and the CNB kids to sell things to raise money for CNB. After arriving and pretty much not actually doing anything, we caught a bus back to my house, dropped off some things, and then went to find food. We ended up eating veggie subs at a gas station that were actually pretty good then we all walked down the Septima(a road) until we got to the turn to go to Diana's and Juan caught a bus to his house.

Yesterday I didn't do anything except go to see a brazillian movie with Diana last night.

Today, who knows what I'm going to do. I'm really looking forward to getting home and seeing everyone again. I like Bogotá and I am definetly going to miss some people here, but it's always nice to come back home.

Adam

todavía vivo

2007-08-23T01:05:15Z

I'm still here and still alive. I know I havnt wrote anything in a while, but I guess the novelty has just worn off. Havnt been feeling it. So yea.....English classes are going well, CNB too....um yea, see everyone in about 2 weeks..

adam

por fin, fotos!

2007-08-07T20:36:01Z

Diana and Marta when we were camping.

A scene of the place where we went camping. That is Marta and Jose's tent in the photo.

Sín titulo

2007-08-06T21:51:10Z

Lsat Tuesday I went camping with Marta, her boyfriend Jose, and Diana. We went to some land that Jose owns that is just potato fieleds and woods. It was a lot of fun. We had tents and a fire. We cooked corn, plantains, and potatoes with aluminum foil, and also made pasta. The next morning Diana woke and felt really sick. We packed up and left, and I have been taking care of Diana for the last 3 or 4 days. I think she is pretty much better now though. So other than that, I really havnt been doing anything lately. I didn't go to the classes on Saturday because I was taking care of Diana, soo.....

I got soem photos from the camping trip I am going to put up as soon as I can. I kow I always promise photos, but...well..sorry maybe this time they'll get up here.

Adam

harta gente en las clases

2007-07-29T17:26:36Z

Yesterday was the second English class in Sierra Morena. I went with my friend Daniel, but we arrived about 15 minutes late because we got on the wrong Transmilenio bus and had to change later. Anways, the kids class had a bunch of new kids, with a total of about 25. The adults class was packed! There must have been 35 people or more! I had to write real big on the board, and talk really loud (yelling really). Daniel walked around in the classes answering people's questions, and everything went really well. Afterwards, we had a meeting with the people who own the community salon we are using for the classes, and they said they wanted to help us expand the project to other parts of Ciudad Bolivar (one of the neighborhoods in Bogotá). We are going to set up a meeting with epopel we have found saying they are interested in helping out and figure out who is available what days and where we are going to start setting up new classes.

Last night I hung out with Diana, Jose, Marta and Christina, it was a lot of fun. Also, in a taxi I got a fake $10.000 peso bill (worth like $5) but I didn't notice because it was like 3 AM, so....weak. No one will take it in any store. I'm going to keep trying though.

Adam

Falta un mes, un poco más, hasta que yo vuelva a Orlando

2007-07-26T23:44:15Z

Actually not a whole lot has been going on lately. The English classes went pretty well last Saturday, and we've gotten some repsonses from the posters of people who want to help out too, so that is good. I've pretty much just been hanging out with Diana every day. We are trying to figure out how to get her a visa to come visit me in the US in early December, but "Los malditos gringos" have already denied her the visa twice in the past few years, but there is a saying here with US visas "la tercera vencerá" which prety much means, third times a charm.

Yesterday Christina was telling me and Marina(from Italy) about how whenever people notice her accent and she tells them she is from Spain they are like "Wow! That is so awesome! Cool!". I told her that when people ask where I'm from and I say the US, they just are like "oh....hm", not "wow cool!" just "oh." Diana says she isn't patriotic or anything, but she likes being Colombian, and that she doesn't deny her country like I usually do. Yea, I defiently deny mine, or if I tell people I'm from the US, I always follow it up with immedeatly saying "I'm ashamed of my country." Diana and Christina don't have anything to be ashamed of with their nationality, I do - a TON.

Anyways, I think Diana and I are going to go to this natural park where you can ride horses, there are cabins to stay the night, and it is in cloud forest, about 20 KM from Bogotá. Diana starts school on August 1st, so we should go before then.

I went to use Marta's computer yesterday to put up some photos on here, she finally got it back from being fixed after about a month. Well, as soon as I turned it on, it was all screwed up again, and she had to take it back to get it fixed again today. WEAK.

Comida, No Bombas is going well. People are starting to show up every week without us having to go hunt them down. I'm satisfied with the progress. Also, we get a ton of donations now from some other places, and usually have vegetables to give away along with the meal of soup and rice.

I made hummus yesterday. It was amazing.

Adam

fijando afiches, y más o menos parchando en general.

2007-07-18T23:22:43Z

Yesterday Juan and I went to Sierra Morena to post posters for the English class that we are starting over. We start on Saturday. After we got back, I went and hung out with Diana and her friend Mari. We made rice, lentils, and fried potatoes, and ate a lot. Afterwards, Mari left, and Diana and I hung out in the living room talking until her mom came home. I got home at like 3 AM last night, and Marta and the kids from Spain had all goten back from their trip. After kicking Marta out of my bed, I went to sleep. Today at 12:30 I met Juan at the Universidad Nacional and we posted flyers to get people to help out with the classes in Sierra Morena. We met one lady when we were posting flyers in the foriegn language department who offered to pay us $20.000 pesos/hour to talk to her students in English. She runs an English school I guess. That is like $10/hour - So I think I might give it a try, I still have quite a bit of free time.
Then I came home, cooked some food, and now I'm here.

Adam

No sé que

2007-07-16T18:33:43Z

I've been trying to plan out what I want to do when I get back in September, and me and Diana are thinking about doing some pretty crazy things in the near future. Things have been pretty chill around here lately. Marta gets back from travelling with the other kids from Spain tommorow or Wednesday. June 21st we start up the English classes again. Today we're going to see a mexican movie called The Violin about a group of mexican musicians supporting the guerillas in the mexican revolution. Sweeett. Yesterday Diana and I went to the fleamarket but didn't find anything too good.

Adam

En Bogotá de nuevo después de casí una semana

2007-07-11T22:43:07Z

Diana and I got back into Bogotá yesterday afternoon. It was a 16 hour bus ride from Santa Marta. When we got to my apartment the key didn't work in the door. After repeated attempts the keys eventually ended up being thrown on the ground in quite an angry manner. We went to Diana's house since my house was broken and I had to stay the night there last night because I couldn't get a hold of Leo or anyone who had keys. This afternoon I called Marta, who is still travelling with the other españoles, and she gave the number for Leo's mom. She told me she had keys, that Leo had changed the lock "Didn't he tell you?" she asked me to which I replied "um..no". So anyways she came down to the apartment, unlocked the door, I made a copy of the key, and then she left telling me "You're going to be here by yourself so use good judgement, but I know you always do anyways, unlike Marta, that pothead" hahah. Then Diana and I went to a vegetarian restaurant to eat, and I caught a bus back to my place. We have decided to have 2 or 3 days apart seeing as how we have been together 24/7(quite literally) for almost 3 weeks. Everything between us is awesome, but it just seems to me like a good idea. During the trip we were getting a bit snappy at each other a few times, but that is normal, and I think healthy to have disagreements and arguments.

I have a lot of things to do with the english classes and Comida, no Bombas. I feel like I have been slacking off lately, so I'm going to get back on track with that.

Adam

Acabo de volver de Tayrona

2007-07-09T21:59:56Z

Diana and I are in Santa Marta right now. We just got back a few hours ago from Tayrona. It was absolutely amazing. I have seen a lot of beautiful places in my life, the mountains in North Carolina, glaciers in Alaska, amazing swamps en La Florida, but I am sure that this is the most beautiful place I have ever seen EVER. Rainforest covered mountains crashing down into the sea. Huge round boulders on the shore in piles, perfectly clear aquablue water. wow. Words can nnot describe, and phtos cannot do justice. We stayed in hammocks both nights and it was actually really comfortable. La bina(the bad hing) was that everything wwas super pricey and all the food was gross. We brought a lot of our food with us, so it was all alright. Tonight we are going to catch the bus back to Bogotá. I have a lot of things to do when I get back. I will write a better entry about the trip then.

Diana is going to be in Sao Paulo in a year to live for 6 months, and I am planning on going to visit her. I also wanted to go to Argentina, but maybe Brasil would be better. I still have a year to decide - but I'm definetly leaning towards Brasil. Sweeeet. I'll have to get the portugese a lot better before I go. Right now Diana and I have fun exchanging a few phrases and holding really simple conversations in portugese. I am thinking about staying there and hanging out with her for maybe 3 months or so, but there is plenty of time to make plans. She goes in July 2008. So many things to do, so little time (and money)

We have no idea what happened with the españoles (the kids from Spain). We havnt been able to get a hold of them by phone. They were supposed to meet us in Tayrona, but never showed up.

Adam

Taganga, Santa Marta, Cartagena, y de repartir mañana, Tayrona!

2007-07-06T21:49:18Z

Right now I am in Santa Marta on the Carribean coast about 2 hours east of Cartagena. Here is what we have been doing the last few days.

We were in Cartagena for two days. Diana and I usually went off and did our own things while the other kids went and did their things. We went to the beach both days, drank coffe and water from coconuts and went swimming. We also went walking aroudn the old walled city of Cartagena and got some vegan pizza at this one place.

The night of the 2nd day in Cartagena we got a bus to Santa Marta, and form there took a taxi to this town called Taganga. We rented out a house there, and went to the beach for past two days again. The beaches are really really nice, with the tropical deep blue water that you can actually see through, and are set in these deep bays surrounded by mountains. The whole area is really dry and covered in cactuses and high cliffs, but I liked it. I also rented a mask and a snorkel, swam around looking at a few corals and cool fish, and got stung in the knee by something in the rock, but it only stung for an hour or two. Diana and I both have pretty bad sunburns (not terribly bad), but I think hers may be a little worse. Our backs are really red. Below are some photos I found online of Taganga.

This morning we caught a bus to Santa Marta, and have been here since about 12:30. We got a hotel for the night, and tommorow we are going to go to Parque Nacional Tayrona. I think the other kids are going to the Guajira peninsula (a desert surrounded by ocean and paramilitaries). I need to buy an hamaca (hammock) to use in Tayrona, and then we go there, I think we are going to go back to Bogotá. Tonight we are going to go to the beach when the sun goes down a bit, just to walk around and hang out. We also need to go buy food to take to Tayrona, and some other things to get ready to go. The photos below are of Tayrona.

De verdad! Estamos en Medellín!

2007-07-02T19:00:56Z

We got into Medellín yesterday morning after about a 10 hour bus ride from Bogotá. So yesterday we (there are 10 of us) went to the Pueblo Paisa, which is a tourist trap type thing on a hill in the middle of the city. Basically, it was just a bunch of tourist shops. Then we went and rode the metro-cable, which is a skyline type metro that goes above the City and is part of the public transportation system. Diana and I went and tried to find food, but it was Sunday, so everything was closed, and between the few things I found to eat, I was pretty much hungry all day, but that's ok, it happens. Then last night Marta, Diana, me, and 2 of the girls from Spain all went to some park to hang out, and Diana and I went to a mexican place to eat since we were both real hungry. Then everyone went home and went to sleep.

Tonight we leave by bus for Cartagena. It's 12 hours. Until then, I don't know exactly what else we are going to do doing our time here. Medellín is a really nice, pretty city with lots of trees and warm weather. It is also pretty clean, but has a lot more poverty than Bogotá, and a lot of homeless street kids you see walking around huffing glue from plastic bottles. That part is really sad (they are like 5 or 6!) Anyways, I need to go buy some food to take on the bus trip. Today it yet another holiday, so I hope I can find a place that is open.

Adam

lo qué pasa con las clases, nuestra viaje por Colombia, y una otra fiesta.

2007-06-30T17:55:40Z

So I have a lot to write about today.

First thing:

Juan and I have decided to start everything over with the English classes in Sierra Morena. We decided this because we havn't had anyone show up for classes for the last 2 weeks because of the confusion with the space. However, here is our plan. We are going to start up the classes again on July 21st, and they will now be on Saturdays, with the kid's class from 1-3 and the adults class from 4-6. We found a new space with a guy that is very orderly and professional. He showed us the space and it is huge, with a white board on the wall and lots of tables. Also, he made an announcement through a speaker system that is rigged throughout the entire neighborhood, letting everyone know about the classes. This time we are going to have people sign up, and are going to collect phone numbers for everyone so that we can get a hold of people if there is a change of plans with the classes. Also, we are going to organize everything a lot better too. We were talking about putting up flyers in the infospaces and the foreign language departments of local universities to find people to help out. We are thinking that if we have enough people to commit, we could start up other classes in other poor neighborhoods in Bogotá. Maybe in a few months we could have a type of teaching collective, with classes set up all around the city, and maybe other things other than English, such as auto repair, gardening, etc.. We are talking about setting up a website for it too. Sweeet ideas, yo creo.

Second thing:

We are now working really close with Bajo la Sombra with CNB. They got some other donations secured, and we will now have plenty of food. Friday we didn't even use all the food we got, and are going to save it for next week. Also, we need to organize this a lot more, with flyers, more public outreach, and we are talking about a literature table as well.

Third thing:

VIAJE! Tonight Marta, Diana, Me, Christina, and like 6 other kids from Spain are all going on a 10 day trip all throughout Colombia. Tonight at 11 we catch a bus for Medellín, and from there, I'm not sure exactly what the plans are, but I know we are going to Cartagena, Santa Marta, Parque Nacional Tyrona (which is right by Santa Marta, and then Villa de Leyva. I think we are going to some other places as well, I don't know the full itenerary.

When I get back from the trip I need to go to the DAS and get my second extension on my passport.

As for the trip to Leticia, we are still looking into getting plane tickets. The thing is that there is only one airline that flies there, so the tickets round trip are about $300, (my round trip ticket from Orlando cost like $530). I hope we go though!

My friend hre Andres is leaving in a few days to go live in Sao Paulo Brasil for six months. He is then moving to Buenos Aires in Argentina and living there for two years. So last night we had a going away party for him. We all went to this bar called Magnolia and hung out. I really hate bars, but I figured since it was my party, and this kid is really awesome, I should go anyways. I met this one nice Colombian girl who was lives in Spain, and we were talking for a while just about random things, Spain, Colombia, languages, friends, etc etc... Then I danced with Diana some cause she wanted to, even though I'm really bad at dancing. Oh well. This one kid I know here, I forget his name, but he is really cool. He speaks English, plus French and a bit of Norwegian, and obviously, Spanish. Anways, he was telling me I was smart not to drink, because it just makes you feel terrible and nausiated. The bar wasn't too bad, but I was glad to leave. When we got back to the house, the party continued, but I went to sleep at about 3:30. When I woke up at about 11:30 this morning, the party in the house was still going on. I'm so glad I'm not like those kids...geez.

Andres invited me to come visit him in Buenos Aires, and I have decided that I will take him up on his offer. I'm thinking in maybe summer or fall of 08', but I have decided I am going to go. I really really want someone from Orlando to come with me! I am also thinking about coming back to Bogotá, just because I am helping out with so many projects that I will want to come back and see how everything is going.

I havn't been able to go help out with the community garden for a few weeks because I have been out of town every weekend. I feel kind of bad about this.

I will really try to get some photos up ASAP. Marta's computer still isn't fixed.

Adam

Bajo la Sombra nos van a ayudar con Comida No Bombas, y otra cosa muy chèvere

2007-06-25T17:57:29Z

We finally got a space secured for the English classes while the lady who owns the other place is on vacation. Hopefully people will still keep coming and don't get confused.

Also, I met this great girl Diana(Day-ah-nuh), and we are a couple now. That's right, I do believe I have a Colombian girlfriend. I really like her a lot. She is really down to Earth, smart, sweet, and low key. I addition to all these things, she is really easy to talk to, and is one of those people who is pretty calm about everything. That's good, because there are a lot of people who freak out easily and are really hyper/loud (maybe more here). She is really cute too. She also smiles and laughs a lot. I think it is really really cute when she tries to speak English and says things like "Hello, my name is Diana" and "I am from Colombia".

This past weekend a bunch of us went to another finca(farmhouse/ranch thing) in a town called Subachoque. It was Marta, Andres, Jose, Sebastian (a different one), Lorena, Diana, and I. It was fun, mostly just partying hanging out and talking the whole time. We got back last night, and then Diana, Marta and I ate some vegetable fried rice we made. Then I took Diana home, met her mom (this always terrifies me, meeting parents), and Diana and I watched a movie called The Science of Dreams that was really wierd, and I didn't understand even though it was in English subtitles. The whole movie was a strange mixture of French and English, with a little Spanish too.

Today at 6 CNB de Bogotá is meeting up with an anarchist collective here called Bajo la Sombra (Under the Shadow) to start working with them with CNB and get it more organized. Two guys from the group came out to the sharing on Friday, and were talking about setting up benefit shows, getting things more organized, and having more literature available. They were also talking about starting up a community garden in this empty lot a few blocks away. Sweeeeeet.

Today Diana and I are watching movies at her place (she's really into movies, and is a film major at her university), and then going to the meeting with Bajo la Sombra. I'm hungry, I think I am going to go get some pasabocas (Vegan Colombian Pastries!)

Adam

Parque Jaimie Duque

2007-06-20T01:26:32Z

Yesterday Marta and I went to Parque Jaimie Duque, which is about 40 minutes north of Bogotá. This is a park you have to see to understand. It's like the owners of South of the Border opened a theme park in Colombia. There is also a Parque Zoologico that we went to that was cool. Other than that, we only went on two rides. One was Dante's Inferno that Marta was insistant on going on cause she had heard it was the best in the park. The other was a Fairy tale one that went through scenes of Ali Babba, and some of Cinderella. Both were water boat rides in chinsy metal boats and you go through a tunnel, and there are scenes on either side with big dolls and tacky decorations. It was fun though. I already knew how bad it was, seeing as I went last time I was in Bogotá about a year ago.

Today the kid's english class had to be pushed back until Friday, and I will teach the kids, and Sebastian the adults or something. To make a long story short, we can't get the new space until Friday, and wern't able to use it tonight. I'm working on making some handouts for the class Friday.

One of the kids who came to help at CNB last week got us weekly donations of some kind of soy "meat". Sweeeeeet.

The deal with the photos is that they are all on Marta's computer, and her computer is broken. So until it gets fixed, I can't try to put them up again. Bummer.

Ada,

Comida, no Bombas nos fue mucho mejor hoy

2007-06-16T02:56:48Z

About the photos below, I think I know where I screwed up posting them. I will try to put them up again tommorow.

In other news, Comida, No Bombas today was really good. We served about 50 people, and only about 7 were yuppies. There were about 4 people waiting when we got there, and we caught a lot of poor people as they were walking by told them about our free food, and told them that we were here every Friday at 2. There were some guys riding by on wooden cart pulled by a horse they used to carry things to sell to recycle, and I yelled to them "Hey, we are giving away free food in the park right over there", and the guy immediatly jumped down from the cart, yelled FREE FOOD! and starting running across the street. I followed, and when we got to the median in the middle of the road waiting to cross the next lane to get to the park, we both just started laughing. I think we can expect a lot of people to come back next week. We also had a lot of kids, 5 or so, who came to the sharing to help out, and everything went a lot smoother today than last week. On the downside, the soup today could have been better. In the end it just ended up being more like a bunch of veggies boiled together instead of a soup. Oh well, next week we will get it good. We also had salad and fried plantains.

After CNB, Juan and I went to the English class in Sierra Morena. We spent the whole class working on pronunciation, which is hard to get down, but people are progressing well. The lady who runs the place kinda sucks, neither Juan nor I like her at all. She always comes down and tells us "It's 8, time to go!" and...I dunno, she just sucks, her whole attitude. You can tell she doesn't want us to be there. Also, she is going out of town for a month, leaving us scrambling for a place to teach the class. In the building where we have the class. She lives upstairs, and downstairs is the community center/space type thing. I asked her if she could give me the key to the place so we could continue holding the classes there, and she said "I'm going on vacation" and I Said " Well, can you loan me the key and we can just continue to have the classes downstairs" to which she replied, "I'm going on vacation...vacation, a break." pfff whatever. That lady sucks. Christina doesn't like her either haha. One of the girls in the class is going to see about getting us another place to use for the month this lady is out of town. Hopefully that will work out, otherwise, I don't know what, but we'll figure something out. We can't miss a month of class.

Tommorow I am going to make some CNB info sheets to pass out at the sharings, because people always ask us why we are giving away free food. Oh yea also today, one of the private security guards who work at the park asked us what we were doing and we said "Giving food to hungry people....do you want some" and he said "sure!". Haha, then another guard came up and there were talking and joking around with us, eating, for about 15 minutes. A far cry from the park guards in Orlando who just want to call the police and be a pain and get their panties in a wad about poor people eating. Also, the park administrator came by and when we explained to him that CNB was just giving food to hungry people he said " oh...ok...well thats good!" and left. Haha! Colombia rules. I will post some photos from today's sharing tommorow.

Adam

Un montón de fotos para los que quieran verlas

2007-06-14T18:52:39Z

This is la Plaza de Bolìvar. This is where the Congress, Supreme Court, and National Cathedral are located. It is in the heart of the old city, which is known as La Candelaria.

This is a view of the National Cathedral as you are entering Plaza de Bolívar.

Walking through the street in La Candelaria. That's me to the left!

This is a photo near El Parque de la Independencia near downtown Bogotá. That behind me is actualyl a monument to George Washington.

A normal street in Bogotá.

Another normal street scene in Bogotá.

This is a view from the window of our apartment.

This is our dog Homero that lives in our apartment with us.

This is a view of the city from Monserrate, which is the highest peak surrounding Bogotá.

And this is how you get up there.

This is what you see when you get up there. On top of Monserrate is a restaurant, gardens, and a church.

A view from the gardens on Monserrate. This is looking east, away from the City.

This is us on Monserrate with the City behind. From left to right is Marta's friend from Spain, Marta, Me, and Juan Sebastián.

This is me at El Estretcho del Rio Magdalena when we were in San Agustín.

Everyone that went to San Agustín. From left to Right: Juan, Natalia, Marta, Ana, Alfonso, me, Daniel.

A view from the trail through the park at San Agustín. Looks pretty crazy eh?

It is hard to see because the photo is so dark, but this is a carving of a shaman holding a new born baby over it's mother. In the back are other stone sculptures, all are over 1000 years old.

A tree fern in San Agustín. Eric and Ryan, this is for you.

This is the first ever sharing of Bogotá Comida, No Bombas.

People who came to get food at Comida, No Bombas.

People getting food.

This is our poster. It is turned around because we wrote on the other side that we were serving free food.

This is one of the exhibits at the Gold Museum in Bogotá.

Another one of the exhibits at the gold museum.

This is me and Christina (from Spain, she helps with the english classes for kids) in a coffee place in Usaquen. She is looking through her guide book on Colombia.

Leaf cutter ants! We saw these last weekend when we are at the finca in Melgar. How Cool.

The results of Leo's freak out temper tantrum. This is the entrance to our apartment. Grooosss.

Leo se fue por algunos días, y nunca he hablado de los sectores de Bogotá

2007-06-13T03:23:56Z

Tonight for dinner I am going to make garlic fried rice, patacons(plantains), fried potatoes, and zucchini with orange juice. The juice came in a bag, how weird is that?

I just got back from the kid's english class at about 9, and everything is going well. Also, Leo is gone from the house for a few days. I think it is a kind of retreat after the temper tantrum he threw. He went with his mom (she is pretty nuts). This is good.The morning after the tantrum, his mom was in a real bad mood, and was lecturing me because the kitchen at OUR house was dirty, and then she cleaned everything and told me that for now on it needed to stay like this, blah blah.. Is she my mother or his?? geesh. She complained about the bathroom too. I hope she never comes back.

One thing that about Bogotá that is really weird and that I've never mentioned is that the whole city is split into sectors for products. Anything you can think of that can be bought has a sector in Bogotá. So far I have seen the Pajama sector, with about 12 stores that only sell pajamas, the fish store sector (this one distracted me for a bit), the scale sector, with stores that sell only scales. There is also a plastic furniture sector, a bike sector, and photocopy sector, a book sector, electronics sector, autoparts sector and those are only the ones I've seen so far. Pretty Wierd. Oh yea, and the blanket sector, with stores with walls and walls of blankets.

Tommorow I think we are going to look for more donations, and go to the museum of modern art. I'm not sure what we are going to do about CNB this week, seeing as we can't get poor people to come get free food. I've never had this problem before.

Adam

Peleas de yuppies a las tres de la mañana......retresados.

2007-06-11T16:01:02Z

Last night at about 3 am I was, predictably, sleeping in bed. Then Leo (the guy who owns the apartment Marta and I are renting rooms in. He lives there too) came home with a bunch of his yuppie friends and started blaring salsa music and partying AT 3 AM. So I just shrugged it off, figuring they'd drink themselves into unconsciousness or overdose on coke in an hour or two, then I could go back to sleep. About an hour into the fiesta, I started hearing a really really loud banging sound, like someone slamming into a door. I heard some female voices say "We're leaving...oh wait...where is the door?", and I heard Leo arguing with someone. Then I heard shouting and glass breaking. I just stayed in my room - it's a yuppie problem, nothing to do with me. I heard Marta talking, and when the noise died down a little I went to her room to make sure she was alright and find out what was going on. Marta told me that Leo was fighting with his neighbor Jose over, you guessed it, a girl, typical yuppie argument. In his drunken rage over "a lack of respect to me in my home", the typical "lack of respect" bruised ego yuppie fight, he broke all the glass out of the front door, slicing open his hand and spewing blood all over the entrance to the apartment. He also started slamming into Jose's door in an attempt to break into his apartment and kill him. There were a bunch of people trying to calm him down, and after about 45 minutes of Leo slamming into doors, breaking things, and spewing tons of blood all over the place (gross), the cops came, caught him a taxi and sent him to the hospital. Marta was taking photos the whole time. Figuring the soap opera was over, I went back to sleep, only to hear Leo slamming into Jose's door about 20 minutes later screaming "HERE I AM!!" He then broke through the ceiling of the apartment into Jose's apartment upstairs, and started trashing the place. By this time it was dawn, and I was just wanting to sleep. From what I could hear through the pillow over my head in my room, I guess Leo's mom came over and went with him to the hospital to get stitches for his hand, and everyone else was just kind of freaking out about what had happened. Also, he got blood on my only 2 towels that were in the bathroom, and covered the whole bathroom with blood splatters. It looked like a scene out of Pulp Fiction or something. Silly yuppies and their parties and girls. None of this would ever happen with anarcho-punks.

Also, today is yet another holiday, which means everything is closed and I'm kind of stranded with nothing to do.

Adam

Dos ollas de sopa, y no hubo nadie para comerla. QUE?!

2007-06-10T19:08:45Z

This morning we got back from a ranch house in a town called Melgar about 3 hours from Bogotá.

Friday morning at about 9 am, Marta and I went to go collect the donations for Comida, no Bombas. We got just barely enough to make 2 pots of soup, a pot of rice, a salad, and fruit salad. We started cooking at 10am. Marta was at the spot in the park where we told everyone we would be at 2, and we (my friend Juan Sebastian and I) got there around 2:20 with the food and the table, and bottles of Agua Panela (it's a Colombian drink). The thing is THERE WAS NO ONE THERE TO GET FOOD!! We passed out about 40 or 50 flyers in the 2 to 3 days before, and there was not a single person waiting to eat. I mean, this is Bogotá Colombia, a 3rd world country, where you always get people asking you for something to eat, and no one came to get FREE FOOD. WHAT? After the initial shock of no one being there, we set up the table, flipped over the CNB poster and wrote "COMIDA GRATIS! EN SERIO!" which is FREE FOOD! WE ARE SERIOUS! Then we just handed out food to people who happened to be walking by, and some kids who were skateboarding in the park. I mean, we had to do something with all that food right? I think we fed 2 homeless people. Bummer. We are trying to figure out what we can do to get more of the people who need the food to come eat it. Who ever thought it would be so difficult. It took us about 2 hours to get rid of all our food. By that time Sebastian and I had to leave to go teach our English class, so Marta washed the pots. I felt bad leaving her to do it, and she didn't like it too much either. We had to cut the class short an hour because we had to meet up with the kids that we were going to the "finca" with. So we left at 7 and met up with Marta and this guy Jose at a gas station near the Transmilenio.

The car ride consisted of 3 hours of listening to music, some pretty bad punk (including Agnostic Front, uggh) and everyone singing along to Dead Kennedys, Misfits, and old AFI. Like I said before, pretty much everyone I meet can speak at least medium fluency English, so it was Juan, me, Jose and another kid Andres singing and screaming along the whole time. It was a fun drive through the mountains at night with the crazy Colombian drivers who change lanes constantly and are always passing in front of the slower cars even when it is a double yellow line in the road.

When we got to the finca, or ranch house, everyone started partying and drinking, but I went to sleep at 2 AM. I think everyone else went to sleep at like 5 or 5 :30. There were some other kids there, mostly ones I didn't know, with a total of about 15 people. Saturday was just hanging out at the pool at the house all day and eating coconuts from the palm trees. There were some parrots there that would say "coco coco" when you gave them coconut, and start screaming(really SCREAMING) "noo nooo" when it fell or you left with the coconut. Marta and I went for a walk, and found a big line of leaf cutter ants carrying cut of pieces of leaves to their nest, and then ran into a bunch of cows walking on the road with a guy. I was kind scared they were gonna start chasing us, the cows that is.

Tommorow....I don't know what I'm doing.

Adam

¿Usaquen?...no es nada...pero el Museo de Oro es una chimba, por seguro.

2007-06-07T18:17:19Z

Tuesday I went and bought us a table and another pot for CNB, and then Me and this girl Christina from Spain went and taught the kid's english class in Sierra Morena. It went well, the kids are really funny. They get all excited when they know the answer to something, and we played hangman with sentences. Christina speaks really good english and lived in the UK for one year. This made it even funnier when she spelled the word ¨mom¨ in class as ¨mum¨. Haha. On the bus there and home after the class we talked mostly in Spanglish. Spanglish is really fun to speak, and is also confuses everyone else hahahahaahha. It's funny too, I think.

Yesterday Marta and I went to the Museo de Oro (The Gold Museum), and then met up with Christina and went to find a part of Bogotá called Usaquen. We were told and read that it was a small colonial type town that was just enveloped by Bogotá, but actually, it wasnt anything, just a normal neighborhood. Bummer. So went just went and got some coffee. After that we went to Exito, a department store here, and bought plates, spoons, and cups for the first CNB sharing tommorow. Today we have to go around to the markets that are donating and confirm and remind them that we are going to be coming by tommorow morning to pick stuff up. Also, tonight we should be getting some stuff from the Oraganic Market. I'll make a post after the sharing tommorow letting everyone know how it went, hopefully with pictures. We have been passing out a lot of flyers to people we see here in Bogotá who are either homeless, really poor, or displaced by the violence in the countryside (in which case they are usually also really poor and homeless.)

Adam

Jardínes, amig@s, y museos

2007-06-03T01:16:21Z

We are going to Boyacá next weekend instead.

On Thursday Marta and I went to the Museo Nacional. I'd already gone, but she hadn't so I went again. There was a temporary exhibit of all this gold and things they found in an old tomb in Peru. Cool. I got photos. We also went to La Candelaria (the real old part of town, like 400 years old) and walked around and took photos. Very tourist of us I would say.

Yesterday was the english class for adults. We are learning how to conjugate verbs. I have, you have, we have, they have, he has, she has, you all have.

Today I went and helped out in the community garden in Sierra Morena, and tommorow I'm getting copies of the Comida, no Bombas flyer that we have designed to get people to come get free food, and also buying a posterboard to make a CNB poster for the first sharing this Friday.

Umm...yea, thats all, I really miss everyone back home A LOT LOT LOT.

I wish I was learning my spanish faster, it is progressing, but I still can't understand sometimes, especially with a room full of people. But one on one, I got it pretty good. It really depends on the person, some poeple I an understand better than others. It is more accents than the speed they speak. I know the words, it's just sometimes it is tough to recognize them. Practice I guess, I still got three months to get it fluent hopefully.

Adam

Lo que pasará en los días siguentes, Boyacá, y otras cosas también

2007-05-30T17:45:36Z

Today Marta, Christina (from Spain), Marina (from Italy) and I are going to San Andresito to buy the pots and other things we need for Comida, No Bombas. We are leaving around 4 o'clock.

Last night Christina, Marina, and I went to the kid's english class in Sierra Morena, but we got there about 20 minutes late. By this time everyone had left figuring we wernt going to show up. We talked to one of the ladies who works there and she explained to us that all the kids had gone home. As we were leaving, we all felt really bad, imagining all the kids excited to go to class then being disappointed. One girl came while we were waiting outside the building, and she had her notebook all filled out nice and neat with the colors, numbers, months, and days of the week. That made me feel even worse! I guess that some of the kids are going to come on Friday to catch up, and we'll just teach them in a seperate section of the building from the adult class. We'll figure it out.

I was reading this book yesterday - Off the Map - about these two American girls hitchhiking and squatting throughout Europe. It is a good interesting book, replete with the poetic, romanticized crap that one has come to expect from Crimethinc (I usually skip over those parts). Anyways I was reading and the author brought up a good point about how people look at life. She said that most people live their lives in pursuit of "success" as if it were a point to be reached. As if one can arrive at a point and all the previous hardships and preparation of the past will culminate in this point, and will have been worth all the trouble. However, most people never get there, and work and struggle their whole lives for nothing other than making other people rich in the process. I thought that was a really good point. Here they are, hitchhiking and traveling around Europe, going where ever fate takes them, LIVING, while other people are busy in the cubicles working to reach that elusive point of "success".

It is a really really nice day out today. Actually, the constant rain stopped about a month ago, and there have been a lot of nice days. I mean like sunshine, and a temperature of about 70...sweeeet, but it can change really fast sometimes.

This weekend Marta, me and bunch of other people are going to a finca (farm/ranch) in Boyacá for 2 or 3 days. Boyacá is a department of Colombia, although I'm not sure where in the department we are going. It is a 3 or 4 hour busride to get there, and we leave on Saturday afternoon. This means I'll get to go help at the community garden, which I havnt been able to do for the past two weeks. I'm pretty stoked about going, it is always nice to get out of the City. On the big map two posts down, Boyacá is area number 6.

I was talking to Marta last night, and she was telling me that she could come visit me in the US next year around June. We have been discussing this for a while, me visiting her in Spain, and her coming to visit in the US. She said that with her scholarship (o beca en español) she could stay for two months. One month she would have to study in the university, and the other we could go traveling around. I told her we could go to North Carolina and check out the mountains, and then Washington DC, plus some other places. SWEET!! I'm really stoked. She also wants to see all the activist programs and things we got going on in Orlando. It will be her first time in "Gringolandia" haha.

The girl on the computer behind me is trying to sing a song in english, and I'm holding back laughter.

Adam