School starts tomorrow

I'm not really sure what to say here, except that I feel it's important to say something.  I spent a month in Bogota, I've spent a week in Yopal, and tomorrow is the first day of class.  My lesson plans are ready, the students have arrived back on campus, and this is it.  I should feel some kind of way, probably, trepidation or excitement or something, but honestly it kind of feels like tomorrow is just another day - nothing special.  I guess tomorrow will tell.

On another note, I've been in Yopal for a week, and it's probably worth saying a few words about my initial experience here...

First things first, my Spanish is atrocious.  If not for having the personal memory of the classes, I wouldn't believe that I studied this language from 7th through 11th grades.  FIVE years of classes, and literally, I think I understand about 10% of what is said to me.  This language thing will be an uphill battle, though it does conveniently remind me just how difficult and frustrating it can be to learn a language.  Hopefully I can keep the feeling of frustration in mind (shouldn't be hard) as I teach English, that it might remind me to be patient and compassionate toward my students.

Perhaps the next thing of note is my roommates.  Not traditional roommates.  Bugs.  There must be 50 species of insect living in my room with me.  They're everywhere.  I kill the mosquitoes, the really big bugs I relocate back outside, and the rest I just try to ignore.  There's no way to keep them out because there's about a 4" gap between the top of the wall and the roof, so my room is literally open to the outside.  They're especially concentrated in my bathroom for some reason, though I'll take that happily to having them concentrated in my bedroom.  The best form of control I could think of was to make spiders my allies, so any spider that builds a web I'm not likely to run into in the dark by accident gets to stay.  While brushing my teeth this morning, I counted 14 spiders in my bathroom.  I must need to recruit some bigger spiders though, because during the same time I killed 6 mosquitoes.

On brighter notes, I'm enjoying living in the country.  It's a very nice change of pace after living in Bogota for a month.  There, I was forced every day to wonder, "Will today be the day I get hit by a bus?"  Here, I have no such concerns.  Fresh air, trees, breezes.  It's a little warm, but I'll take that over the lung-searing smog of the city.  This week in Yopal was a little boring because there weren't any students, but they've all arrived back from break now, so things are a bit more lively.  It's a little funny to be back to school as a professor instead of a student.  Everybody's moving back into their rooms and it kind of feels the same as when I was in college.  I have to remind myself that these people are not my classmates, they're my students.

Anyway, that's all for now.  As always, please feel free to leave a comment or send an email.

Oh, I almost forgot.  I put up some photos of Yopal on picasa.  Follow the link if you want to check 'em out (I should note that, as of publishing, some of those photos are still loading.  If you only see 5ish, check back in about an hour for the other 10ish.  My internet connection is nearly dial-up slow sometimes.)

Alex

What the River does

"If ever there were a connection among all people, it is the awe we feel in the face of moving water."  - Eric Adsit for American Whitewater, January/February 2010 issue

What the River Does

The river sometimes crawls, sometimes runs,

              Sometimes whispers, sometimes roars.

I have heard it sing

            and I have seen it beat its fists.

The tiniest rivulet, the mightiest torrent,

             these follow the same rules.

As one would leap, rush, and race to its destination,

             so the other.

As one would curl, turn, or ripple,

             so the other.

The river never hesitates to fall, nor balks at the mountains before it.

The river is not concerned with what lies ahead or behind.

The river does not care if you throw rocks at it or ride on its back.

The river need not think of who sits on its shores.

It is the quality and privilege of the river to be concerned with naught.

Rain or snow, sun or clouds, hot or cold,

               these are inconsequential to the river.

Should it freeze, it simply waits for spring.

Should it run dry, it waits for rain.

Should it flow over, it patiently looks for the sun.

Should it boil, it can be assured of someday reaching the tranquility of the sea.

The river knows it is neither alone nor independent, yet

                 it concerns itself little with the affairs of what it cannot change.

It would rather reflect the sun and the moon, flow onward, and

                 rest assured that the future, though unpredictable, is inevitable.

Mi primera vez en Yopal (My first time in Yopal)

Part 1.  Excitement.  Joy.  Right now might be the first time I have really felt these things since I came to Colombia.  Not that I'm unhappy - by no means.  It's just that most of the time I'm a little nervous and a little lost.  But right now, this moment, is excellent.  I'm on a tiny plane flying to Yopal for the first time - the place where I will spend my entire upcoming year, where I will teach my students and share in their lives.  The people who know Yopal keep telling me the biggest danger is falling in love with it and never leaving.  In this exact moment, as I see the Andes fading into foothills and foothills into the green sea of the central plains, I think maybe they could be telling the truth.


Part 2.  The drive out to Utopia took about half an hour from the airport, not including the stop we made so Br. Carlos could buy Angela (another visitor to Utopia) and I rubber boots.  Yopal is a city of about 150,000; but it doesn't feel that way at all.  Something about these places, maybe the lack of any particularly tall buildings (?), makes them feel very small.  But anyway.  The drive out takes you down this one long road, Matepantano I think, away from the city.  For a little while the road is paved, but it soon turns to dirt and rocks.  Br. Carlos said "Bienvenido al mundo tercero.  Welcome to the third world."  


At first, it doesn't seem so different from many places in Montana.  Barbed wire fences run along the road, separating it from the cows and from the crops.  When a truck comes down the road the other way, you slow down, move over, and roll up the windows.  Then you suddenly see a bright yellow bird, or notice that the cows have these long faces, loose skin, and horns that curve backward, ... and that was when it struck me how little I know about this familiar scene.  The rapid banter in Spanish that filled the truck, the banter I could only catch short phrases of, complete the brick-to-head feeling I was having.  As we pulled up to the gate, a solid gate 10 feet high with a guardhouse on one side, I watched with my eyes and my heart as Br. Carlos greeted first the security guards and then every person he saw with a warm smile and a hearty handshake or kiss on the cheek as he called them by name. 


The compound itself is beautiful.  Low, white-walled buildings with tile roofs sit demurely at the end of raised cement walkways, and lush greenery meets the eye at every turn while the smell of fresh dirt assails the nose.  Frogs call back and forth in the oncoming evening as students sit down to dinner in the cafeteria, and night's song continues until the sun begins to rise and the birds take over.  Perhaps someday I will tire of the remoteness, or the heat, or the mosquitoes, but for right now, this is what love at first sight must feel like.  

One Week

Well, I've been here just about a week now, and I suppose that's as good a time as any to write my first blog post from Colombia!

Sparing you the nitty-gritty, getting here was kind of exhausting, but honestly not too bad.  It is impressive to me still that I spent 3 days accomplishing a trip that could take 10 hours, but whatever, not important. I stepped off the plane at El Dorado Airport around 10:30AM and ran the customs gambit in Bogota in record time - nothing to declare and they didn't even want to x-ray my bags.  With that, I stepped out into the ... um, slightly tepid Bogota July.  It's cooler and less humid here than it is in New York, so honestly, the climate is a welcome change from the summer I'd been having in Albany.  "So it goes."

For several months now I've been coordinating via email with Paola Caro, and she met me at the airport.  Though we have previously only corresponded in Spanish, it turns out that Paola and all the staff at the university's Oficina de Relaciones Internacional y Interinstitucional (ORII) speak English excellently, which has been a blessing, since my Spanish is just as poor as I thought it was, perhaps even poorer.  We arrived on campus and dropped my bags off in what amounts to a hotel room (very nice accommodation, but definitely short-term) and I then proceeded to make a poor impression on every person I met, including the director of ORII and the President of the university.  I have since thankfully been given chances to change those initial impressions, but it was a bit depressing to be paraded through an office of professionals while exhausted from three days of travel that included sleeping six hours in an airport, plus I was still dressed in my shorts and t-shirt.  I managed a nap late in the afternoon, had the first thing I could find for dinner (it happened to be kebab), and in a moment of good fortune arrived back at my room just as some other international occupants were heading out for the evening.  Cue social life, we went downtown and had a couple drinks in a very curious little bar and found our way home around 1 AM.  

The day after I arrived was July 20, coincidentally the Colombian national holiday celebrating Independence. Turns out that isn't a huge deal here the way it is in the U.S., but it still means all the businesses are closed and downtown is a street-fair zoo.  Since there wasn't anything urgent to take care of, I made use of Independence by going for a walk.  Six hours later, I was confident that I was near the university again, but I just couldn't seem to find it.  Finally I climbed halfway up the mountains that border the city so I could get a look down, and lo and behold, I had been within about five blocks of the place.  Sore in the feet and pretty well pooped, I slept away the late afternoon, ventured out for a quick dinner, and retired early.  


Sunday was a relatively uneventful day, but Monday was a doozy.  Monday I went to CLUS (Centro de Lenguas de Universidad de la Salle) and met my new boss!   Yep, I have a boss.  Since my service here in Colombia will be teaching English at Utopia, and since Utopia is a branch of Universidad LaSalle, and since CLUS is the department of the university specifically in charge of the language requirement for students, el jefe (the boss) at CLUS is also my boss.  So, for the next 3 weeks or so I am living in Bogota and working at CLUS to learn the pedagogy of the university as it relates to teaching English.  Specifically (for you teachers out there), CLUS requires its instructors to use a task-based approach that emphasizes communicative ability for all lessons, as opposed to grammar-based or any other pedagogical systems.

Since my students at Utopia are technically students of LaSalle, they are required to meet the same standards of English (as a required set of courses) as all other students.  To ensure all students are graded properly for their level, LaSalle has designed its own standardized tests, and I have to be properly trained on how to administer them (from such details as keeping the tests in a locked room to how to properly assess the oral exam).  This amounts to two real-world tasks for the next 3 weeks.  Very daunting, and exciting, hands-on training in regard to teaching, as well as very dull and difficult watching of previously recorded lectures on such thrilling topics as how to use technology in the classroom and fairness in examinations.  But, my new boss is cool, I can browse the web while I "watch" videos, and at least I'm not just spending my day trying to figure out how I should be spending my day.  I hope to come out of these three weeks with a greater sense of confidence in my teaching abilities and a much more practical understanding of the expectations for a language teacher at Universidad LaSalle.  Did I mention I'm also going to be taking a Spanish class?  Thank goodness for that.

Though there have been other minor events throughout this week, none are particularly worth recounting at this time, particularly since I'm really excited to write my next post, which will happen as soon as this one is finished.

Ciao!

One-way ticket

Many of you already know.  You've seen something on Facebook, you've heard it through the grapevine, maybe I've even told you in person.  For the rest of you, though, it's time for me to come clean. I'm moving to Colombia (South America) on Wednesday.  I'll be continuing this business of volunteering, though in a very new capacity.  Universidad La Salle is a university in Colombia run by the De La Salle Christian Brothers (FSC), and I am going to work in their Utopia program.  Utopia is an Agricultural Engineering program based in El Yopal (about 350 km from Bogota) that brings in bright young farmers/students from deep Colombia, particularly from communities affected by drug violence, with the intention of training these people as entrepreneurs with the skills to change the economic opportunities available in their communities.  True to the mission of the Brothers, Utopia is a way to change the world through education.  I will be living in student housing, eating in the dining hall, and teaching English to these intrepid young people.  I suspect I'll learn more Spanish than they will English, but I will do my best and hopefully not cause too much damage.  

I have a lot of feelings as I prepare for this next journey.  My bags are mostly packed, my room is mostly cleaned out, and my goodbyes are mostly said.  My two years in Albany have been great.  I made a point of making this place my home, and saying goodbye to a home is hard.  I'm sure over the next couple days, as I make my way to New York City and then on to Bogota, that I will find myself struggling to unpack the many experiences I've had here.  The boys at LaSalle School, my many friends on the river, the people who have been with me here day in and day out, all these people have changed me, shaped my thoughts and feelings about this place, and I am sad to depart from them.  There have been great times here, and there have been days that challenged my faith, and both have helped me become who I am now.  I have grown tremendously in my abilities to work with challenging youth, in my wilderness abilities, and even in my self-confidence (though some of you will argue that I didn't need any more of THAT), which might make what I say next somewhat perplexing.

I take all my experiences and new skills with me to Colombia, my carry-on bag of personal tools, if you will.  I also take a lot of doubts and concerns about whether I can really do this, whether I can do the job I have been called to do.  Frighteningly, there are implications here somewhat beyond my control.  There are some people watching to see if this could blaze a trail for future volunteers.  If my experience is a blinding success, then I suppose that would be a good sign.  But what if it this all turns into some dismal flop?  I'd rather not think about it.  Similarly, there is little (i.e. "no") evidence that the university has hosted a volunteer like this before. What if I turn out not to be what they expect?  Will they ever be willing to take the risk again after me?  Another thing I'd rather not think about.  These doubts have been tugging at me for some time now, and much though I'd rather not think about them, they're almost ALL I think about.  Every time somebody asks, "So are you excited?", I freeze for a second as my courage wavers.  I am decidedly NOT excited.  Very few times in my life has there been the real possibility of failure.  I have done a pretty darn good job of setting myself up for success, and when failure has been a likely outcome, I've done those things in private.  Putting my failure on a world stage is truly a painful thought.  

There has been one comfort in this process, one piece of advice I keep reminding myself of.  At the Lasallian Volunteers' debriefing retreat, one of the other LVs quoted I-don't-know-who when she said, "Sometimes the right person for the job is the one who is willing."  Sure, I'm trepidatious about the whole thing, but I'm also willing, and maybe that's enough.  Writers often claim that courage is not being unafraid, but taking positive action even when you're scared witless.  I pray that I have enough courage to get through this, and enough skill to come out the other end better than when I went in.

Wish me luck, remember me in your prayers, and as always, don't hesitate to leave something in the comments section below.

Happy Monday!

Alex

Sh*t my dad says, pt. 1

I spent the weekend with my parents and decided to start a "sh*t my dad says" list.  I call this part one because I'm sure as time goes, I'll discover yet more gems to be shared.  I hope you think he's as hilarious as I do.

1. "Rainin' like a cow pissin' on a flat rock."  Probably the most-used of his many phrases, I grew up thinking this was a normal thing for someone to say.

2. "Hotter 'n a three-peckered billy goat."  This might be my favorite of his sayings, though there are a couple more on this list that would make a modest person blush.

3. "If a frog had wings he wouldn't bump his ass every time he hopped."  You know the whole, "if fishes were horses then beggars would ride" thing?  Well, this is my dad's take on that.

4. "Shiny as a diamond in a billy goat's ass."  And just how shiny is that?  Not very.

5.  "Asshole deep on a tall Indian."  The only racist phrase that made the list this weekend, this was in reference to the amount of snow Cutbank, Montana receives each winter.  I think this was immediately followed by a "colder than a" statement, but I didn't write it down, and can't seem to remember it.

6. "Dryer than a popcorn fart." In reference to the dry stream bed on my parents' property.

7. "Hornier than a three-peckered hoot owl." Yep, he said that.


I can only hope that my father continues to produce such colorful phrases.  I will dutifully share them all with you.

Winter Camping with LaSalle

--- From the LaSalle School eBulletin ---

NEW YORK - March 27, 2012 - Last month, LaSalle's Recreation Department organized a winter camping trip for five boys. Alex Branch, a Montana native and currently a Lasallian Volunteer, was one of the trained and experienced staff that accompanied the youths on the trip. Alex kept a journal detailing his impressions of how the boys approached different situations and reacted to the many challenges such an excursion can, and did, present. What follows is his personal account of the trip.

"A lot of preparation goes into a winter camping excursion, and students Rob, Jason, Jordan, Eli, and Mike did a great job of being present and positive about the process. It took us about an hour the night before and another 45 minutes the morning of to get all our gear packed and get on the road. Each boy had a pack with about 25 pounds of gear, including a one-person tent, heavy winter sleeping bag, foam sleeping mat, extra clothes, and their fair share of community gear - cooking stove, cook-pot, pan, food, etc.

We set off mid-morning and drove to the Hogtown trail-head on the east side of Lake George, northeast of Pilot's Knob. There was less snow and ice than we expected the first day, and our four mile hike into Fishbrook Pond, around the back side of Sleeping Beauty Mountain, went smoothly. We ate a short lunch at Dacy Clearing, about one mile in, then climbed up and over the southwest ridge of Sleeping Beauty and past Bumps Pond to Fishbrook, finally arriving there at about 3:30 in the afternoon. There are two ADK lean-tos on opposite shores of the pond, and from our vantage point at the first the territory around the second looked more suitable for tents. The walk across the frozen pond was a first for the boys, and put a couple out of their comfort zones, but they showed their incredible sense of adventure and trust in the staff by following us across.  


The late afternoon weather was pretty chilly, dipping below freezing and spitting bits of rain and snow as we set up camp, so our second order of business once the tents were up was getting a sizeable pile of dry wood and a hearty fire to cook our dinner on. Cooking and eating dinner took until well after dark, and with the temperatures hovering around freezing, a long day behind us, and a long day ahead, bed was a welcome sight for the boys at about 8:00. Most of them didn't even want to stay up to roast marshmallows!

The next morning started beautifully. The clouds cleared and the sun came out while we sipped on hot chocolate and cooked a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, and English muffins over the camp stove. We left camp about 10:00 AM and set off for the summit of Sleeping Beauty Mountain. The trail offered quite a bit more ice the second day, much of it a frozen cascade rather than an actual trail, and gave some of us reason to strap on our snowshoes as we climbed. From camp to summit is a 2-mile trek, and the view was well worth it. We ate a quick snack and paused for a photo opportunity while taking in the views of Lake George and the surrounding area, then fled the wind and headed down the mountain. 

The trail down confronted us with many more challenges than our first day, mostly as rivers of ice, and going was slow for the first mile and a half or so. Eventually, the trail leaves the frosted northeast side of the mountain, snaking around to the south face and the shining afternoon sun.  It was a blessing to make it to dry ground, though the boys did seem to enjoy the challenge of sliding most of the way down the mountain.  We finished the last couple miles on good, more or less level trail, and made the van about 1:45. After a quick lunch we hit the road back to LaSalle, returning safely to campus about 3:30. 

We spent until dinner getting unpacked and debriefing the trip. The boys felt positively about the 

experience, rating it a 7 or 8 on a scale of 1-10, and had plenty of compliments for their team members. As part of debriefing, I also asked kids to describe an obstacle they overcame to be successful, and this trip offered plenty. Boys talked about the ice, the length of the hike, the weight of the packs, the weather, and a few other things, all the while identifying their achievement of the summit as worth the effort."