Manizales, Colombia

hi everyone,
wow so much has happened since i got here. this past wednesday i finished the orientation with worldteach in bogota and came here to manizales where i will be living for the next year. on wednesday i met the home stay. its really nice, i have a large room and my own bathroom. the lady i live with, her name is frida. she has three daughters, adriana, christina, and patricia. the middle daughter christina lives with her. also fridas two grandchildren are antonia and sergio. antonia is ten years old, shes a really sweet girl who likes to do gymnastics and play, and i get to practice my spanish with her a lot. the boy is sergio, he is 15 and he likes to go to the gym and play soccer, of course like in all of latin america. the family is all girls, except for the boy sergio, so its really nice, we talk a lot, and my spanish is definatly improving. i have gotten familiar with manizales, its a really nice, quiet town, and all the people are very friendly, theyll do anything to help. im very excited to live here this coming year. every morning i run to the estadio, stadium which is ten minutes from my house, then there is a track where from 6am to 10am people come to run and do exercise. here is manizales its your typical small city,everyone know each other, the pace of life is very slow and comfortable, there are many public services such as the track, everyone is super nice, and if you ever get lost just ask anyone on the street. i also have a supermarket close to my house called la ley, and i live close to the central avenida which is avenida santender. manizales is a city focused on culture and education. there are many cultural activities that take place such as music festivals, art galleries, and cultural events. also manizales is a university town. there are 9 universities in the city and 3 very close by. its a city very focused on bilinguism, there is a special project that started up two years ago, which is an effort of fundacion luker, a chocolate company, centro colombo americano, the link between the us embassy and colombia, and the ministery of education of manizales to make all high school graduates from manizales biligual by the year 2017. there are 62 schools in the community of manizales which take part in the biligual program. out of those schools 12 are currently bilingual, which means they have half thier classes in spanish, and half thier classes in english. the other 12 schools are called escuela activa urbana. active urban schools. this is an educational theory which is focused on student learning through interacting within the students, and have student| lead activities, with teacher guidence. the teacher proposes activities, and the students whom sit around round tables, cooporate as a group, the stronger students help the weaker students to achieve the same goal of bilinguism. it sounds like a very nice idea, and i will know more of the framework once i am teaching at teh school. the other worldteach volunteer that is also living here in manizales is angela. we are both working with different projects in manizales, and will be teaching english in the elementary schools. she is specifically working with the luker foundation and the colomboamerican center in three public schools which are part of the urban active schools system, this means the schools have an emphasis in english, but are not yet biligual. the three schools angela will be working with are INEA, a school focused on producing nurses, pocheli, a latin american school, and one other public school. i will be working at the san jorge school. all of the schools in which we work in a poor public schools that wouldnt normally have the opprotunity or the financial resources to have a native english teacher in their schools. angela will be focusing on the middle school and high schools grades, meanwhile i will be working teaching english to students in grades k-4. up to now it seems to me that manizales takes being bilingual very seriously, and that we have many different organizations supporting angela and i in order to have a positive and meaningful teaching experience this year.
apart from the focus on education, and culture, and having super nice people manizales has a very rich environment. i step out my door and every morning i am stunned by the scenes i see. as i go to the track in the morning i see an industrial city, built into the mountains. the mountain are amazing, rich, green, furtile, snowcapped mountains, fresh air, butterflies, its absolutly heaven. manizales is very focused on biodiversity and protecting the environment. the main coffee company here, the the zona cafetera is one that gives back to the environmental concious projects and is very green. also at each of the universities there is a focus on el medio ambiente, the environment and the biodiversity in manizales.
yesterday angela and i went to two places with the ministery of education, who will be my boss, whom is andres. he showed us the resinto del pensamiento, the farm for thinking. its a beautiful place with green landscapes, a butterfly sanctuary, an orchid farm, and also a cable car. one of the most innovative things manizales has to offer is the cable car. a common form of transportation is the cable car, people actually sit in a booth, and get to work on a cable, in the air, overseeing the whole city! There are many diffent points to take this car throughout the town, mostly from the shopping centers. also in the shopping centers there are plazas which sit at the highest point of the shopping mall and oversee the whole city. there is an open view where its possible to see all the surrounding mountains and scenery. when you walk around at night, the views are amazing, the lush green mountains on the backdrop of a dreamy sunset. everyhting is beautiful the mountain with the sunrise and sunset, the lovely people, the slow and calm pace of live, their way of living, its very happy and positive. i am confident that i will love it here, and if people want to come visit i am sure they will fall in love with the city. i find myself having to take out my camara every second of the day, and saying to myself that this city should be the posterboard for a postcard company, its that beautiful. i will try to post pics asap, im afraid i have way too many pictures.
all in all i am very excited to be starting to teach at the school next week, i feel that i will really make a difference, i have a once in a lifetime opprotunity to come into such a welcoming and warm community, to make friends with the paisas, people of manizales, learn thier traditions and cultures, and also to impact the lives of the poor children and the least funded elementary schools, and the surrounding community.
later on in the year, one of the worldteach missions is to create a special project to enrich the community in which they live in. i am very excited about this, i will have the opprotunity to bring in much neede resources, into low income communities of manizales, which would otherwise not be able to recieve these gifts, where they be of education, knowledge, cultural awareness, the english language, and pure fun. right now during the orientation im being handed a lot of information, and i will try to come out of this 3 weeks orientation with all the information absorbed, and translates it into making a difference for this community, that truly deserves it. i hope to hear from everyone family, and friends, and i will write another update soon. lots of love, amor y besos

Neta