Work is finally starting to get interesting, which is great since I'm here from 7:30-4:30 every weekday. For the first week I was mostly meeting with people to try and find a project I could work on, but I think I've found one! We're putting together a guide for small-scale farmers that will help them apply a business model to their operation. My personal business experience extends about as far as the lemonade stands my brother and I had when we were little, however after all of the reading I've done on businesses, I now know that we used product development to increase our value proposition (by offering, not just beverages, but snacks also). Business models are actually a lot more interesting than I previously thought...Anyway, I get to work on section 1, which is about value chains, and something I know much more about to begin with. It's kind of weird, though, to be given so much freedom to do real things (i.e., write a section of this real guide that real people will actually read). Part of it, I think, has to due with the fact that everyone here assumes I'm a graduate student. I've been asked what my 'background' is dozens of times (and given dozens of different answers...)
CIAT, where I'm working, stands for Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical, and conducts a lot of agricultural research specifically aimed to reduce poverty. Given that, it's really ironic how much hierarchy there is here. There are department leaders, who are given cars with diplomat status (that's weird..). There are all of the scientists and lab staff who work for the leaders, and then there are the farmers who do most of the labor of growing the crops that are involved in research. There are three different dining spaces, one for each of these groups to eat lunch in separately. Apparently the justification for this separation is that the field workers need to eat more so the portions are bigger, and the department leaders can pay more, so they have more expensive food....
Also, the mosquitoes here are fly way faster and are way smaller than the ones in the U.S., which is SO ANNOYING.
And, last night two french hippies moved into my house as well. It's a man and a woman couple, and then were high as a kite last night when we got home from a birthday party celebration, haha! Weed seems to be really common here, and costs like a tenth of the price as it does in the states, which doesn't make a ton of since, since food and other stuff is only maybe a third of the price as in the U.S.

Colombian phones make NO SENSE. There are like 4 different cell phone carriers, and so it is really cheap to call your same carrier, but really expensive to call other carriers. Because of this, no one uses their phone to make calls, just to receive calls. If you want to make a call, you go to one of the many people selling minutos on the street, where you can pay by the minute to use a phone of any carrier. These are apparently kind of illegal, but I say kind of since there are about 10 per street corner, despite an equally high number of policia on every corner also. Additionally confusing is the fact that the area code you dial for a number changes depending on whether you are calling a cell phone or a land-line. What?! I thought area codes depended on area...
Two guys who work in my lab tried to explain all of this to me on Sunday. They offered to give me a tour of Cali since they both grew up here and seem to have taken on the responsibility of making sure I don't get myself killed. They drew me a little map of where I can walk in the city and where I should not walk (which is about 3/4 of the city, and not an over precaution). The worst district is called something like Rosa Blanca, where there's a lot of gang activity, and where they both used to live (Cristian now lives with his grandmother in another neighborhood). And made me a list of things not to do, including walk around with an Ipod, ever, hail a taxi alone, etc. I'm still really surprised by how generous everyone here is though. I think these guys are the poorest people I've ever actually known, but they insisted on buying beer and pan de bono (or something like that, it's these little donut shaped dough things with cheese) and empanadas for us on the tour. It's really hard not to feel guilty. The other day Cristian, upon seeing my tattoo, said he really wanted to get one of his mother on his back. She just died at the beginning of this month, but he doesn't have any money to pay for it. What's the story of my tattoo? Uhh, I was in London, and my friends wanted to buy me one, so they did, because they could...It's also really weird to realize that everything I ever talk about implies that I have money. Like just the fact that I'm in Colombia traveling, and neither of them have even traveled in Colombia, let alone any other country. They're great though, and it's giving me a different kind of appreciation for privilege.
A lot of the Colombians who work here at CIAT had to work harder to get here than anyone I've ever seen, too. It's really common for people to have day jobs and have done college and graduate school at night. (And I know many people in the U.S. do that too, but knowing about something is not at all the same as seeing it up close.) Compared to that, it really is like I have the world just handed to me.
More about my house. It's affectionately been named the Earthquake House or Casa de Terremoto by the CIAT extranjeros who live in some swankier apartments up the street because "if there was an earthquake, there would be no house." I love it though; there is the most beautiful view of the city from the balcony, and the hallway and part of the kitchen is open to the sky, so when it rains (which is almost every day for at least a little bit), it rains into our house and makes a beautiful noise. Of course, there are also a lot of leaks in the roof, which isn't actually a roof, but plastic with some tiles laid on top. And sweeping is a new experience, since the floor is not really a floor, but boards nailed to some framework with lots of holes into the downstairs. So half the time I think I just sweep dirt down into Theresa's room...

Ive found people to play football with here. This weekend I've hung out with Theresa and John and their friends. Everyone is really, really nice and friendly, but it's still a little strange to be the worst at Spanish and the youngest by 4-15 years. Anyway, the guys of the group all get together and play football a few times a week. It's a mix of colombian and German men, all of whom are at least 26, mostly older, and then me, this 20 year o of female american. But it is really fun, and since women don't really play that much football here or in Europe, they all think I'm crazy good. I didn't bring any shoes I could run in thouh, so yesterday I walked down to the center to buy some tennis shoes. There is shop after shop filled with brand name - lacoste, addidas, Nike, etc - shoes, only when I went to pick some out, John explained that they're all fakes! So now I've got my own, super classy pair of knockoff addidas marathons.
Last night we went to this place called The Saloon, and heard this great live band, and I was somewhat forced to try aguadiente, the most popular hard alcohol, that tastes like cheap vodka with anise flavoring. Blehh.

I'm in Cali now, which is really different than traveling around. I'm living in in barrio se llama San Antonio, in this really cool, old house. Its open in the hallway and dining room, so the sun and wind and all come right in.
There are 3 of us now, me, a masters student from Germany who's doing her research at CIAT with me, and her Colombian boyfriend who I suspect is at least 30 if not a little older. He works on water pollution issues in the city. They're both really sweet people, and really good dancers so they took me out salsa dancing last night.
We get up at 5:30 every weekday in order to catch our bus, which means I don't have a ton of ganas for other stuff, but i can run in the agricultural fields at work which are really pretty.

SO MUCH FREE COFFEE AT WORK!!
Also, endophytic entomopathogens in frijoles, oh my!

The jungle is so cool! It`s like the safari ride at Disneyland except real. There are soooo many kinds of butterflies of all different sizes and colors, and luckily no snakes yet. Dan, Sammy, and I went to San Gil, which is supposed to be the adventure capital of Colombia, and so logically we went on an 'adventure trip.' I thought it sounded a bit lame at first, but, silly me, I forgot we're in Colombia where no one is afraid of following safety laws or getting sued...i.e. it was SUCH a sweet trip.

First, we all shared this local, hard cider drink, that is literally just water and sugar that is left to ferment. Apparently you get rum if you distill this cider. Then we explored a cave that indigenous people used to live in, that you had to crawl in to, and there were parts inside where we had to wade through really dark water (creepy). There were TONS of bats, and for a while we sat in the complete darkness so the bats would fly around. They never hit us (cause of their bomb sonar navigation obvs) but they got so close that you could feel the wind they made as they flew by your face. There was also a part in the cave that seemed to be made completely of clay mud, and our guide told us to cover ourselves with it because it's good for your skin (like when you get a mud bath at the spa??). I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, but he covered himself in it so we just kind of followed along. I've probably never been so dirty in my life.

After we came out of the cave we had the next 4 hours to hike down a river bed through the jungle. So we climbed down these huge, moss-covered rocks, swung from tree vines, and walked through the river where it was calm enough, and then when we got to waterfalls, we repelled down them with ropes, or jumped down them if they weren´t too high. Right before the first jump that we came to, our guide goes ''make sure you jump feet first, because it is not very deep, so you need to be sure you will hit the bottom with your feet.''

Our guide, Miguel, was a Colombian who lived in London for the past 10 years or something and spoke really good English. He brought some bocadillos for us to eat on the trip, which is crystalized guava wrapped in banana leaf, and sooo good. Anyway we could just throw the banana leaves into the jungle to decompose, at which point Miguel gave us an impassioned speech about how crazy it is that we know how to use natural wrappings like leaves and yet we are still using plastic and styrofoam. ''People say they care about the environment, but no, no they dont care or they would do something!'' He also brought along some tobacco which he snorted right before we headed out, claiming that he uses it everyday since it cleans out his respiratory system!

Apparently buses in Colombia vary greatly, and there is a very good reason most of the bus stations have chapels to pray in before hitting the road. Ive tried two bus lines, going to San Gil and coming back to Bogota. The journey should theoretically take the same amount of time, since it's the same distance both ways. Wrong. On the way there, we took a swankier company, that was actually the nicest coach I think I've ever been on, complete with TV the whole ride, and bathrooms and really cushy seats that reclined! The ride took us about 7 hours, making 2 stops. On the way back, I took a different company, that more Colombians take. Every seat was full, and there was no airconditioning. We make about 25 stops on the way back, but it only took us 8 hours, because when we werent stopped, we were driving SO fast and carelessly it was actually like a video game. The driver made phone calls and texted while he was driving, and then passed cars in front of him when he got to them, without really caring whether or not he could see what was coming in the opposite direction. 

Some things:
It's been one week and still haven't found a warm shower.

9/10 Colombian families brews a pot of coffee every day (fact courtesy of Dan, who loves learning SO much he felt a need to share these juicy tidbits round the breakfast table)

I think Colombian men are required to join the police force for one year. We visited the police museum in Bogota and got a free tour by two young officers. The museum was not very interesting, but it was quite gross, with lots of pictures of dead and mutilated cartel members. And even a tile with some of Pablo Escobar's real blood! There was also this sign that said, in Spanish, "If you want to be happy for a day, party. If you want to be happy for a year, get married. But if you want to be happy for a lifetime, join the police force." I asked the officers, who by the way were wearing army garb and carrying really big guns, if that was true, and one of them said "Well, I think if you want to be happy you have to do what you really love doing." At which point the other officer chimed in " Yeah, for me it is music.  I love to play music."

I saw my first crime yesterday. I was in a taxi by myself in Bogota and we passed a taxi stopped in the middle of the road. Inside two women were fighting with their driver. Not arguing, but actually leaning over the seats grabbing and struggling with something. In the middle of the street. Since there are so many police around the city all the time, the taxi created enough of a commotion that some officers came running over with guns pointed right away, but it was still a little shaking. My taxi driver said something along the lines of "ah, everyday things of Bogota."

So Ive now met up with Dan and Sammy, my friends who flew in from England yesterday, and weve had a pretty good time. Granted, all weve done so far has been get drunk and go out dancing last night, and then this morning we went to a museum, but THEN we had lunch and I did the classic tourist move of ordering something off the menu even though i didnt know one of the ingredients. It was called frijoles con something, and it came with arroz and aguacate, so how wrong could i go, right? Anyway the food came and soaking in my bean broth was a pig foot. Seriously, it had four little toe things, and was pretty squishy, and you could see the bone and tendons that had been severed at the end. SOOO SURPRISING. The soup was really good though, so I guess pig feet make nice broth.Something to try in culinary house next year??

In other news, my Spanish is definitely getting better. I learned Colombian slang for cool, chevere, and i also learned how to say 'i want to tap that ass'. And thanks to Sammy's Spanish phrase book, which so very thoughtfully comes with a romance section, i can also confidently say ´'sorry, i cant get it up' and 'its ok, ill do it myself.'

Last night I found myself speeding through the streets of Bogota, packed into a little car with 5 other Americans, drinking Colombian rum (which is way tastier than cheap rum in the states), which spilled sometimes as we swerved to avoid 5-foot potholes, or when the other drivers arbitrarily decided there should one more or one less lane of traffic. They have lane lines, but, kind of like the traffic signals, they seem to be more of a suggestion than a law. I met one of these Americans at my hostel, and he knew a few people who live here and teach English. So we went to a Colombian house party, speaking a little Spanglish and listening to salsa music. I was definitely the youngest person there by about 7-10 years, but everyone so far is super friendly.

Im in Colombia!!! Got here at 5 this morning, and after a quick lil nap I went exploring. I did somehow manage to find the museo d'oro which has tons of gold stuff made by the indigenous people who lived in Colombia SOO LONG AGO. I didnt realize this but the first evidence of agriculture was here (as far as I understood in Spanish). Speaking of Spanish, I'm not really. It is so much harder to understand real people who talk so fast!! It feels unfair so far-like I'm not actually THIS bad at Spanish if only there were some pauses in between words. But i have managed to buy things!! Including mangoes and avocados yumm!!