Week 6 photos!

Day 36: Along the beach where we live, there's all sorts of little kiosks that sell food and drinks. You'd think that'd mean they'd sell Colombian food. FALSE! They sell gross pizza and burgers and hot dogs.



Day 37: Me with my new Colombian Hat. Doesn't it look Caribbean?



Day 37B: The lunch I had at the beach. DELICIOUS. I saw my waiter walk out to a fisherman hanging out nearby and return with this fish. 20 minutes later, I had food!



Day 38: A friend offered me a ride home after school and then kind of left me in the car as she went to buy chicken. I took this photo while waiting in the car.



Day 39: We had a dinner party with friends where we all made tacos. AMERICAN STYLE TACOS!!!! They were more like burritos. I figured out how to boil chicken and pull it apart into taco meat.

Sadly, instead of taking a picture of a delicious taco, the only thing I took a picture of was the pots. I don't know what was in my head.



Day 40: Ever since I've been here, I tried to take pictures of the horses on the freeway (troncal), but this was the best I've done yet. It was right in front of our parking lot, and I dropped my delicious icecream on the ground taking this picture!



Day 41: The challenges of teaching ELs. I said, "This is your exit pass" as I was explaining the assignment, and this is what one student wrote.



Day 42: This was supposed to be a Christmas gift for someone. Instead, we use it to hang keys. It is much more valuable for that!

Because this is a tourist town, you can buy the same kitsch pretty much anywhere, and this is something we kept seeing and seeing and finally bought.

Week 5 photos!

Day 29: So, there are 2 malls in Santa Marta. The first is Buenavista - a higher end mall with a lot of expensive stores. We go there a lot because that's the first one we were introduced to and it's very easy to get to on bus. the second is Ocean Mall (literally, it's name is "Ocean Mall" that's not a translation). It's cheaper and has a cheaper version of Exito called Carafour. It also has a CASINO!! People have been telling us about Bingo at the casino for the past 2 weeks, so Lauren and I decided to check it out.

We bought a ticket for 1,000 which is really cheap and we were all, "Cool, this is cheap!" only it's NOT because each game is FAST. You can't keep up - they do 1 number every 5 seconds, so you struggle. But it's addicting! They put down a new card in front of you and you just pay for it without thinking.

Within 30 minutes, we'd spent like 10k each. I said 10k was my limit and I won 10K during that time (Bingo for me! I didn't know what to say, so the woman behind us was all, "Say BINGO! SAY BINGO!!!")

After reaching my limit, I dragged us out of there for Chinese food on the upper level. It was AWFUL. The last time we'd gone it was delicious Panda Expess fare, but this time it was nearly inedible.



Day 31: The supermarket near our house. Not all the same foods, not even all the same variety, but a supermarket nonetheless with carts and everything.



Day 32: My kids are so delightful. This is them doing a presentation about how Scribe teachers would beat their students for not listening or learning.



Day 33: A chill night at Casa TEP.



Day 34: I was walking down the dirt road between the school and the main troncal when I saw these two adorable donkeys hitched to a cart. I took a quick photo and then while I was waiting for the bus, I saw the driver of the cart and his two kids drive the cart out onto the freeway. How do I know Colombia is a developing nation? Because DONKEYS WERE ON THE FREEWAY AND NO ONE BATTED AN EYE.



Day 35: My kindle. Without it, I'd be barren of books.