3 month's silence

Can it really be three months since I last posted? And three months since I finished the CELTA? Time flies like an arrow, and fruit flies like a banana.

I have a pending post about how collectivised Colombian society is. It seems it is not going to get posted, so to summarise: family is very important to Colombians, with cousins and aunts being as much a part of the family as brothers and sisters are to us. Friends also, with lifelong childhood friends being very common. We tend to obsess about our fragmented UK or US societies, seeing it as a bad thing and an unfortunate side-effect of our drive toward individualism. Close friend and family support networks do have some clear benefits in keeping society meshed together, but living here you realise the heavy price everyone pays in freedom of self-expression, action and thought. As DH said to me the other day: the UK may have lots of screwed up people, but we make some great music.

So that aside, what is new donde Pablo? Well, since I finished the CELTA I have had the idea that I would like to teach in a public (state-run) school, for ethical reasons. Despite strong opposition from all my Colombians friends who all went to 'nice' private colegios, and from the public school system itself, among whose chief characteristics do not rank flexibility and openness, I finally started teaching in my local public school this week. I do them two hours every morning, teaching 13- to 15-year-olds half a class at a time, ie in groups of 17. They aren't paying me (getting a work visa would have been more trouble than it would be worth) but this is freeing me from all responsibility to "be good" and allowing me to go into class with more confidence. I'm only at day two but so far I have enjoyed it hugely.

The week before last I worked in an orphanage for two days, with younger children, from 5 to 11, supposedly as an assistant to the English teacher there. But the children have lots of behavioural problems (to be expected given their likely backgrounds) and have a very low level of English. Although working with the kids was in some ways rewarding, I didn't feel I could offer them much having no child psychology training and not really being able to teach much English beyond colours and numbers. One girl was playing with plasticine and I asked her, "What are you making?" "A house," she replied. "A house for me because I am an abandoned girl and I don't have a house." Mainly those kids need hugs I think, not English lessons.

I have bought a plane-ticket for Europe, and return to Madrid on December 18. I really look forward to being home again. Originally my plan was to teach here in a school for a while to practise, improve my teaching skills, and find out if maybe teaching might be what I wanted to do "when I came home." I was thinking of doing a PGCE. But I have to say I'm almost wondering why teach in a UK school full of gits when there are lovely kids all around the world who need and deserve an education a lot more. But perhaps my kids are just being nice to me so far because I'm a novelty. Let's see how 'inspired' I am by December.

In other news, I have been writing the odd bit of software, going out partying with my housemates, meeting girls, going on dates. Facebook is a recent internet addiction, and a superb way to not forget birthdays. Photos go there now too: friend-request me if you are interested. A few trips out of the city, and a few party nights within the city.

Oh, and I accompanied my housemate on a trip to the border to change her visa. We ended up spending a day in Venezuela: much like Colombia, only with less comprehensible Spanish, and huge 70's American gas-guzzlers instead of cute little Korean imported cars -- petrol there is extremely cheap.

Oh, and, finally Apple brought out the iPod I always wanted: whole-face screen, wi-fi net browsing, and video. So, to make up for my more or less complete lack of geek- and/or consumerist- purchases in the last two years, I have charged a friend going to Miami with obtaining me one. Bets on how long before getting relieved of it by a knife-wielding street-gentleman.