It's 10 June, and we have now settled into life in Bogota, Colombia. After getting wind of potential work in an English-teaching school, we saddled up and flew out of Quito last Sunday, arriving in Bogota late in the evening. Fortunately we were met at the airport by the lovely Carolina, an old friend of Laura's from London who had returned home to Colombia and was ready and willing to look after a couple of weary travellers in her chi-chi flat in Bella Suiza - once again we had landed on our feet in an upmarket part of town.
After meeting the family, and a bit of sight-seeing, it was all hands to the pump as we prepared ourselves for our foray into the corporate world. Berlitz has a strict teaching method, and since my experience had been restricted to casually-prepared Amnesty training workshops, conversation swaps with spanish teachers in La Paz and talking to big conferences, I was a little taken aback at how much real work teachers actually have to do!
Colombia however seems like a country which is really revving up in the 21st century, having shrugged off the spectre of FARC and having reigned in the drug barons - still a hot topic of conversation for Bogotonians to this day - it is powering ahead due to abundant natural resources and an increasing openess to trade and foreign investment. However it's also quite evident that widespread poverty exists, not to mention some of the most persistent begging I've experienced anywhere on the continent. But Colombians are also renowned for friendliness and inclusiveness, something I've already seen ample evidence of too.
No comments:
Post a Comment