We are here!

Buenos dias! We are here in Bogota, and we´ve had a good first couple of days here. We arrived ahead of schedule Tuesday evening and were greeted by Glenn Moyer at the airport. Glenda, our other host, made spaghetti for dinner, and we went to bed happy and full. The next day started bright and early at 5:30, and we were on our way to El Camino Academy by 6:15. El Camino Academy (ECA) is the school where Glenn and Glenda teach. The day was to be a special one. The 7th and 8th grade classes were hosting younger children from their sister school, a daycare in a very poor neighborhood in Bogota, Barrio Egipto. The two schools have had an ongoing relationship. We had the privilege of seeing those relationships up close throughout the day. We started the day helping the ECA students make hot chocolate to serve with bread to the Barrio Egipto kids. This is a pretty common breakfast experience, and we were glad to share it (very yummy).



Then we packed into a couple of buses and went off to Parque Jaime Duque, the Colombian equivalent of Disney World. Krista and I spent the day "chaperoning" the ECA kids with their younger counterparts, but the ECA kids did a lot of the work. They are all bilingual, very responsible and full of energy, and the Barrio Egipto kids were a lot of fun. Behavior was remarkable, given everyone´s age (the Barrio kids we were with were all under the age of 8, and there were about 30 of them).

After a tour of the school from Glenda, Glen and Glenda took us out to dinner at a delicious restaurant at a uniquely Colombian restaurant. The restaurant, called Crepes y Waffles, began as an economics project by two graduate students at the university. They created the restaurant and only hire single mothers to work there, creating employment opportunities for them. The food was awesome, especially the ice cream!

On Thursday, we explored the local neighborhood of Verbanal, where we got cafe y pan from a panaderia, papaya and platano from a fresh fruit store and Nescafe (for SST nostalgia) from a small tienda.

On Friday, we went downtown to explore a little bit of the historic section of Bogota, known as La Candelaria. We navigated the TransMilenio (bus system) to get downtown, walked through a number of artisan markets, took in some unique art at Museo Botero (pictures below) and ate lunch at a wonderful restaurant that hires people from a nearby poor neighborhood. The food was traditional Colombian, including a delicious soup and the best banana juice we´ve ever had!
 After some more wandering, we headed home, and we are now packing up to head to Cali tomorrow morning (an 8-10 hour bus ride). We´re looking forward to what comes next in our adventure, and we hope to keep you posted! Ciao!

-Krista and Josh