My first week in Colombia

On Tuesday, bright and early, all nine of us marched to the campus, a three minute walk. El Rector welcomed us and introduced to us the EFE team, i.e. all of the teachers and staff that are going to help us learn Spanish and Colombian culture. Javeriana Cali has a beautiful campus on the south edge of the city. As we were walking around, lo and behold, la iguana! IGUANA – I screamed at it from above (iguanas cannot hear well) and she just gave me a confused stare. I curbed my desire to hug it and walked on by.

Joanne let me borrow one of her books: Alfredo Molano's Desterrados

[Spanish] Word of the day: si!

I am in level Basico – Spanish classes run from 8.30 am to noon, starting with grammar and then conversation. In the afternoons we have different cultural activities, like music appreciation workshop (Wednesdays and Fridays) and dance classes (Thursday). Wednesday I meet German for the first time. The G in his name is pronounced as the h in him and the stress is on a. Why am I so particular about how to pronounce his name? Well, because one of the things that he helps us with is pronouncing correctly Spanish sounds. His first choice was easy for me – the elle, or L, I can do it – hey, my name is Lazi, no? Oh, but what a headache, the next sound was erre, R, which for most Bulgarians is easy. How hard is it to roll an r? For those of you who haven't heard me try it – German sounds like an enraged tiger, and I, like a dashing baby cheetah.

[Spanish] Word of the day: CARO (dear, espensive) or was it carro (car) … well, 'BMW' will cover it all :)

This Thursday = verbos!
We learned about 20 or so verbs in the present tense. The afternoon was much more fun as we got to pick different fruits and make sal picon, which here in Cali means a number of colorful fruits chopped finely, with orange or other citrus juice. After this refreshing exercise, Arriba! and on to dance class with Jenny. Jenny is awesomely cool and after showing us some of the basic salsa steps, she had a surprise for us – her students performed Cumbia.

[Spanish] Word of the day: delicioso

Friday was way too much of everything in the morning – heat, sights and smells, words, people. A la tarde, music with German. He brought a beautiful, beautiful Colombian song, Navidad Negra, for us to learn. Let's just say that I need much more practice... the year of solfège I had to take when I was 8-9 apparently left very traumatic impressions on me when asked to sing in public [Note: but even as I type I'm screaming 'here they come, the beautiful ones, lalalala... you don't think about it, you don't do without it, because you're beautiful...' (Suede)]

[Spanish] Word of the day: precioso [beautiful, of course]
Saludos cariñosos,
Lazi