Hello Everybody,
Needless to say that it's still ridiculously hot here which keeps me house bound most of the day. Therefore you can imagine my happiness at having to leave this desert and return to Bogota for a week. Ok, the main reason was to make more wedding arrangements, but it also included catching up with my long time friend Mary - who is living in Bogota, and spending more time with the family in-law.
Here in Cerrejón, I was invited to make an appearance at the local school yesterday, where a series of 8-9 year old Colombian kids had prepared questions about the weather in the different countries that I have lived & visited... it was pretty funny, and more of that later....
A RETURN TO BOGOTA:
Last week I had the pleasure of returning to Bogota, which meant that I had an opportunity to fly on the company plane, which goes from the airport just 30 minutes down the road (instead of 2 hours in a hot taxi through the wilderness). The plane was a little on the small side with just 52 seats, but comfortable enough for the one hour flight to Bogota. The 'airport' was a little small to say the least, but hey, if you're not paying for it, you really can't complain right!?
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| THE COMPANY PLANE... |
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| CERREJÓN AIRPORT |
It was great to be back in the comparatively cool evening air of Bogota. As I said our main purpose for coming to Bogota was to get the 'final' but not quite last permission to for the marriage from the Catholic Church, get the wedding dress / clothes, visit the chapel we are having the ceremony in, and oh guess what.. get the 'final' permission from the local priest of the area where we wanted to get married. We managed to fit a few other things like too including a hair cut for me... always a scary prospect getting your hair cut in a country where there is room for misunderstanding - especially so close to the wedding. Fortunately I avoided any hair disasters as you can see from some of the photos below!
Having met our favourite priest (Father Juan Carlos) to obtain the main 'final' permission to marry, we each had to sit with him individually and go through a list of questions. I wondered if it would be like that game show (who's name escapes me at this moment) where you both get the asked the same questions and then have to give matching answers.... fortunately the questions asked were nothing like that and Father Carlos gave us his blessing. However we were again disappointed to learn that Father Carlos' plans had not changed since our last meeting, and that he would not be free to be the priest for the wedding day. The search continued.... and we had to go back to Sopo, to get the final - final permission to marry.
VISITING SOPO & 'LA VIOLETA' CHAPEL
The next day we returned to the little township of Sopo with Vibi's parents, and headed to the previously unvisited town square... (see below)...
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| Enrique & Emma (Vibi's parents) @ Sopo |
It was a beautiful little place, and looking at the Church in the photo, I was almost disappointed that we weren't having the wedding there. First stop was the local priest's office, which was small but had a steady flow of people passing through. It seemed this priest obviously held some power in this little place. I have to say that I found this priest a little less friendly and caring than the previous 3 priests I had met. Fortunately all we had to do was hand in the documents as they had informed us over the phone, but wait.... the Secretary who was the same person that had given instructions about what documents to bring, decided that we needed to go and photocopy more documents, but in a slightly different way! Having finally handed in all the documents in the way the secretary had requested, we then received instructions about the 10-stage process for registering the wedding after the event! I was not impressed by this point as I'd begrudingly handed over money at every step of the process, even for a stamp!
Still, we could finally go and visit the Chapel in the knowledge that everything was in place from a legal / church point of view. Having found the little Chapel entrance all locked up, we were told to wait for someone to come and let us in... and this is what happened 10 minutes later....
As if a man arriving on horse back wasn't enough of a nice surprise, the driveway to the Chapel had us all left pretty speechless....
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| Driveway to Chapel |
Then despite having seen a picture of the place before visiting, I was still pretty amazed at the Wedding Chapel, which had been lent to us by a friend of Vibi....
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| La Violeta Chapel |
BACK IN THE CITY...
It was now time to shop, and I have to say that Bogota hosts some decent shopping, if you can get to the places in question at least! I was also enjoying eating out, not a luxury we can afford often right now, and certainly not in the desert! So whilst making my way to the toilet at one shopping centre I started to get a little panicked when I could not find any toilet paper anywhere, just a condom machine on the wall. I have been to a few shopping centres here to find no toilet paper next to the toilet, because there is usually a roll of paper somewhere near the sinks/basins. I had not seen any paper here either and so after going in and out of all the cubicles, (probably looking quite suspicious to the other men in the toilet) I went to find Vibi. I'd also been told, that like in Greece, it's not a good idea to flush paper down the toilets here as the system doesn't cope well...
....I found Vibi who explained my problem to me. The condom machine as I had thought, was of course not a condom machine at all (shows what environmental conditioning can do), it was a toilet paper dispensary.... (Now prepare for a poor language joke) ... Much to my relief, (lol) Vibi had some toilet paper, and a nice meal followed my toilet panic at 'Crepes & Waffles' - I said Crepes!
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| Toilet Paper issues |
The highlight of the week (apart from the wedding chapel of course - oops, nearly got myself in trouble there!) was meeting Mary, a good friend of mine who I first met on my first day in College (aged 16). I think Mary was in my biology and Psychology classes, and now she was living in Bogota, which was brilliant. We met at a pretty nice shopping centre (with free toilet paper), and had a fun catch up over tea and then lunch. The obvious comparisons about life here and all the funny little differences that you experience day to day, helped me to put some of my own thoughts into perspective. We both strongly agreed that as nice as rice is, having it with every meal, seems a little excessive, that family relationships offer very different challenges (as they do in all cultures and between different generations), and that generally Bogota is an interesting place to live - minus the transport issues!
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| Me & Mary |
Sunday was Mother's Day here in Colombia, and as we were due to leave Bogota on Friday morning, we wanted to at least have a little celebration with Vibi's mum, (Emma). We found a nice little cake and some flowers, (whilst buying a vegetable peeler and new knife - which I was quite excited about - shows how my life has changed so dramatically in the past 7 weeks). It was nice have a little celebration with Vibi's parents before saying our farewells for a few weeks.
BACK IN CERREJÓN
Once finally back at home in the heat of the desert we were feeling pretty pleased with our efforts in Bogota. It seems a little strange and exciting that the next time I will be there will be to meet my family and get married.
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| Back at home... |
The weekend started with a shake, quite literally as a small earthquake shook the house for just a 2-3 second, enough to wake people up. It certainly reminded me of my time in New Zealand and the shakes I have experienced there. Obviously it was a reminder of the terrible circumstances in Nepal too.
Weekends have their own routine, and my Saturday Morning routine is to now wake up and tune in to Tameside radio - music and sports afternoon program, where my sister has landed a role... it's weird to hear my sister on the radio, but I'm really proud of her!
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK:
I have to admit that this week I have noticed a little change in my mood at times. I think it's because I can easily spend 8 hours a day, alone at home, and whilst I do have some stuff to do: it's not anything that lets me spend time with people. The climate doesn't really help as it's too hot to go anywhere anyway! Also some days I don't see anybody other than Vibi & Santiago. When I compare this to my life of the last 2-3 years in NZ, where I had at least 3-4 different sports / social activities per week, and not including weekends, often with 3-4 different groups of people... you can see how drastically my world has shrunk. However, this week I was asked if it was ok to be interviewed by a group of 8-9 year olds, about the weather in different countries I have lived in or visited. The students were adorable, asked questions including the coldest place I'd been (Winnipeg -40, Canada), the different foods I had eaten (pigs brain, Vietnam), the different kind of clothes needed (New Zealand - wind / waterproof), and focused on Germany, Poland, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, England and Vietnam. I was amazed how much they knew about my previous travels! The kids didn't stop asking questions even after the bell signaled the end of the class. Having signed several autographs, one girl smiled sweetly and asked if she could take a photo with her tablet... I agreed, and a few seconds later she was giggling away. The reason she was laughing at the photo, was because she had an 'ap' on her tablet that showed what the person would look like in 2048 - and she was proud to show me what I have to look forward to! What a cheeky little bugger!
Anyway, I have quite a few jobs to do today, and not all are domestic, so I better get on with it, plus my health kick continues, so hopefully my UK and NZ friends will be pleasantly surprised when they see me in Sept!
Have a great week!
Regards from Colombia
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