Wednesday, November 18th, 2015

I fell asleep rather quickly, got up once at 5am, heard the dogs start barking at 5:15, and got up and knocked on Laura’s door at 5:40.  I must have finally fallen asleep again as the 7am alarm woke me up.

Teresa wanted me to wear my new, but very uncomfortable to walk the hills in, shoes but I reminded her how painful they are so she called Walter to meet us at the top of the hill at 9:20.

Laura left the house at 8am.

Teresa and I left the finca at 9:15 and saw a dead opossum while approaching Guillermo’s house.  The killer dogs came out and I gave each of them a dog biscuit.  Walter was waiting for us at the top of the hill.

Across the street from the school we sat for about 5 minutes until they opened the doors to the school.  In the following photo you can see the school in the distance – Jose Maria Bernal – it’s the green building with the bakery to the left, and a few people waiting outside:

We went inside to what looked like a gymnasium with bleacher seats on two sides and found seats on the end of the 2^nd row near the “stage”.   Notice the colored balloons in the net above their heads.  Later in the program a light breeze came up and one by one blew many of them out of the net. 

This man made sign “PROM 2015” was on the wall.  I wonder what prom means to them?

Teresa told me there are 3 groups; not sure what that means.  In front of where we were sitting was a long table with 6 silver trays on it with various items on them: books, soccer balls, clothing.  Later they were carried by a single student during the procession.  Here’s the view of the table from our seats:

Getting ready to start the proceedings.  Most of the students are waiting outside the door on the right:

They marched in:

First they all sang the national anthem – which I recognized having heard it many times at 6pm on the bus radios.  The ceremony was very interesting.  I asked Teresa if this was the dancing she mentioned and she said no it’s “marchando”.  Spanish words ending in “ando” or “indo” are like our words ending in “ing” so “marching” made a lot of sense because it seemed like they were a college marching band without the instruments but I don’t know why each student, boy and girl, was wearing a white glove on their right hand.

There were a few speeches by a man who I later learned was the principal and another two ladies who I discovered were teachers there.  One of them that you can see here in high heels, about mid forties, looked like she had breast augmentation, liposuction and a Brazilian butt lift, or just an amazingly nice figure.

Finally Laura entered the picture.  She’s the 3^rd girl from the left; the one with black hair.  Lol.

Here’s the principal making a speech.

There were a number of routines with the young boys and girls but also two guys in camouflage and gas masks did a routine.  Huh?

Apparently the formal proceedings have ended.

This video was accidentally taken of Laura when I had my camera on the wrong setting.  Notice the uniform malfunction of the girl walking behind her.  Lol.

This is a photo of Teresa and Laura with one of her teachers.

Teresa and Laura.

After we left the school, next to the bakery, she ran into one of her favorite teachers and I took this photo.

While we were waiting for Walter I walked across the street to the bakery and bought a sugar donut with arequipe inside for 500 pesos.  

Here’s something you don’t see everyday in the States, a man milking a goat in the street.

Teresa bought 5 chicken pastries that she later shared with Walter and Laura.

Walter picked us up 5 minutes later and we stopped at a pet store where we picked up a medium size bag of dog food for 37,600.

Here we are stopped just outside Caldas for road construction.  Notice the motorcycles in front and the concrete “barriers” built into the side of the hill that I believe are used to prevent landslides.

Here are some photos of the new bridge still under construction:

Approaching the “greek” restaurant Kachotis:

More of the concrete restraints:

Passing by I managed to catch one of the tunnel openings you can see above the car side mirror.

The following photos are of the new highway approaching the sideroad and the sideroad itself:

This is video of part of the ride up the hill.  Notice we stopped and then backed up in order to try again.  That part of the road isn’t repaired yet, only the last section you see after the 2^nd turn.

This is video of the ride going down the hill and being greeted by the killer dogs:

First the boxer + rotweiler = boxweiler and then the black dog.  The latter looks like a familiar breed but I haven’t been able to figure it out.  Maybe someone reading this blog can point me in the right direction.

We got back to the finca by 12:30 and I gave Walter 35mil for his help.

Before Laura left for Caldas Teresa asked her to find Gone Girl but this time she found it in English with Spanish subtitles so we started over from the beginning.  

At 6:15 two guys showed up to work on the kitchen just as it was starting to rain lightly.

I asked them if they could open my jar of salsa and the first guy was unsuccessful but the younger guy managed to open it.  Yeay!  So I had some chips and salsa for my evening snack.  This salsa which is marked as being mild is much milder than what Elda had brought a few weeks ago.

They brought handles to put on the cabinet doors but Teresa told them they are too large.  They put nice looking fronts on the sliding drawers and left at 8pm.

My alma mater, the NIU Huskies, beat the Western Michigan Broncos 27-19.

It’s good to see the Colombian Peso over 3,100 again, even if it's temporary.

I was very tired so I took my sleeping pills at 9:45 and went to bed at 10pm.

T-shirt of the day: Some things take time.