El Rincón de los Frailes

What a week. My flight to Bogotá got in a half an hour late which was stressful because I had someone waiting there at 6:50 to pick me up. I get off the plane and follow the crowds to the initial customs line where I gave the nice man my passport and he stamped it that I'm a tourist here for less than 90 days. After that I go to baggage claim, where I find my dad's suitcase he let me bring got badly ripped in transit. An employee filled out a sheet where I can drop off the suitcase and get it fixed for free. But of course that took another half hour and I still had to go through customs. That wasn't terrible though, I gave the nice lady the sheet I filled out on the plane and she asked what food I brought. Then I put my bags on a belt to have them go through security one last time before I could go find my ride. He was waiting there holding the right sign so I walked up and of course his English is bad. Now I was somewhat frazzled, with it being 8pm and my first time in a different country, been up since 4 walking through airports, etc. So my Spanish wasn't great that night. Anyway he gets his car and we drive to the apartment I'm staying in. One thing about Bogotá, the traffic really is awful! It took almost an hour to get there. By this time I just want to sleep, but I need to meet the family and unpack. My host "mom" Angela made me a plate of fruit and some juice and we sat and talked for almost an hour before her husband, Oscar reminded us we needed to wake up for school the next day. I get to my room and start unpacking my clothes so I can wear them the next day, and of course text everyone that I'm home (sorry I forgot you Jenifer!).
Day 1: because Bogotá is so big and has such bad traffic, they have something called Pico Y placo, which means people with cars can drive every other day, depending on where they live. Luckily, Angela was able to drive Tuesday so she drove me to school. We left at 7:30 (which is actually when school starts but she wanted to give me a chance to rest and she had class at 8, BTW she's the art teacher at ECA). We got there and she dropped me off at the teacher care office for them to take care of me. Rosa Maria was so welcoming and introduced me to a bunch of people, who's names I still don't remember. But she told me the basics of what I'll need and what my time there will be like. Then we went to see Jenn, who has been the one emailing me this whole time. In her office she set up my ECA email address, added me to the teacher list and schedule, and their whole system. From there we go see Pati (part of the reason I'm using all the names is to help me remember lol), who will get me a temporary ECA badge and figure out eating in the cafeteria and what not. While I waited there Rachel, my mentor teacher found me! She had a free period so she wanted to show me around. We walked passed her classroom (the kids were in there doing Spanish class), she showed me the different rooms on the first floor and then took me to the second floor. There is a teacher office there where they had a desk ready for me with my name and everything! It's where all the 5th and up teachers work because they either don't have home rooms or don't have a desk there, like Rachel. I immediately loved it there. I really saw the community of teachers by the way they interacted with each other and were so welcoming to me. I'm still learning all the names but I've made progress! She finished showing me around campus - beautiful!! OH! And when we were in the office at one point someone who was using the computer behind me turned around to ask who I was so I told her and she got so excited and went, "I'm Renee!" Which was super exciting because her and her husband lead the church in Bogotá and I had completely forgotten to tell them when I was coming! We talked a lot and she got my number and gave my information to girls my age who would help me get to events and church. Also, there's always coffee in the teacher office AND the teacher kitchen!! Life is good and caffeinated! I got to sit in on her class and meet the students and observe what will be my life for the next 8 weeks. When the bell rang I went home with Angela and she had two high school boys who live in our complex walk me because she had an appointment. I realized though, I had no idea how I was getting to school Wednesday because I left right away I didn't get to talk to Jenn more about it. Luckily she's on top of things and called the house to talk to me about the teacher van. She gave me all the info I would need to take that to school.
Day 2 - Wednesday: the teacher van gets to my complex at 6:22 am so I had to be out the door by 6:20. I was kind of scared to wait by myself but I felt better being so close to the apartment. The van came and it was a full one! I got to meet more teachers on the van. Got to school and put my stuff at my desk then went to the class. Every other Wednesday morning the middle school team gets together to pray so I went to that with Rachel. I love that I'm at a school where the staff gets together to pray for the students! We went to class, I saw what people were saying about a super energetic class! I'm also working on remembering all their names, there's on a few who I'm unsure of at this point. All day though I was worried about getting home, because the bus drops off on the other side of the main road (called the autovista) that's basically their highway. I had no idea how to get to the apartment from that side. Also, there was a teacher movie night at 5 to watch War Room that night, and a teacher van leaving at 7:30. But if walking home at 5 scared me, walking home at 8 was terrifying. However, it was able to be arranged that I got a ride home and stayed for the movie. That happened at about 3, so that relieved a lot of stress. Another cool thing, the teachers get Spanish classes every Monday and Wednesday. Rachel asked her teacher about me and he pulled up an online test for me to take to see which class I should be in. I got level two so he took me to their class and I joined in. It was such a fun class, 3 of us teachers and 2 Spanish teachers. I'm really excited to be able to take this class! The thing about Wednesday, was all day I felt this huge tug of homesickness all day. It almost hurt and I was honestly on the verge of tears all day but I made it through. I thought about the movie Brooklyn that I just watched with Lynds and Kassie before I left. In it the main character moves from Ireland to the states and she feels the homesickness a lot. But they tell her it's like a bad sickness that will go away with time. So I told that to myself and it helped. I also texted my parents a little but we didn't get to talk much.Read more