Catatumbo

On Friday,  I took my last field trip with my Ecology class.  We went to El Paramo de Piedras Blancas.  This is the top of the mountains.  I did not suck at altitude this time! I was honestly surprised.  This is a picture of me not dying of altitude:

(alive)

We didn't stay that long because the teacher was already sick and didn't like altitude either, so I couldn't even gloat that much on how much I wasn't being affected.  But we did get some cool pictures and we did the biggest part of our work.

When we got back, I had a huge headache, so I went to bed early.

On Saturday I got up early and went to Catatumbo.  Catatumbo is famous because it is on the giant Lake Maracaibo, and has a constant lightning storm every night.  It is the only place in the world that does this.  So I arrived at the pick-up place, and we stuffed eight people and their stuff in the back of this Jeep, and we left. First we stopped this waterfall.  Then we stopped at Jaji, which is just a small little town once famous for the largest coffee plantations in the country.  The difference between this place and Merida was stark.  It was quiet. It was calm. It was pretty in one of those small town ways.  We then went to an old coffee plantation.  They had animals, and especially a lovable St. Bernard, that we all had lots of fun with...

After this, we stopped by the Pirate's Cave.  This is a stretch of caves that the Spaniards used as jails to oppress the indigenous people that lived there.  We had to have a guide because it was very easy to get lost in there.  And the flashlight they gave me kept going at the worst intervals.

After this, we stopped at another waterfall.

We then got something to eat and left for the final stretch of the journey.  We arrived in the small town on the lake around 5 or 6 in the evening, which means it was almost dark.  We took a boat out to where we would stay - a hut in the middle of the lake.  Not on some island, but poles stuck into the bed of the lake supporting it.  We ate dinner and went for a night swim in the warm water.  We sat out waiting for the lightning to start.  We saw some lightning, but then got really tired and went to sleep.  But then, later on in the night, we were woken by the sky lighting up like a strobe light.  It was amazing.

(This is a horrible picture, but we saw howler monkeys in the trees)

We spent the night in hammocks.  In the morning, we went on a boat tour of the lake and went swimming again.  I had the most amazing luck to have my camera battery die and then have my camera fall into the water within the same 10 minute period.  It works. Kind of.  I can take pictures and look at pictures. But that is it.  No video, no settings changes, no flash settings.  So I put it in a bowl of rice when I got back, and am leaving it in there all day.  Maybe having dried out will make it normal again.  At least I can still take pictures.  But here are some that I got before that wonderful incident.

And then I got back and found out my internet hadn't worked all weekend and it still wasn't working this morning.  So I am camped at school getting as much work as I can done in order to make use of the internet  I have.  But it was an awesome weekend.

Venezuelan Music Students Have Many Talents

To recap my weekend, I will go backwards.  Today, I was told there would be a rehearsal.  So around 5 PM, I drag myself out of the hammock at school and grudgingly make the walk to the music school. When I get there, there are people, but not as many as there usually are.  I ask the door man what time rehearsal is, and he tells me there is no rehearsal today.  Like this was supposed to be common knowledge, silly American.  So I trudged back to Venusa and pondered to myself.  How is it everyone knows about when rehearsals are or aren't except ME? I mean, nothing was posted.  Nothing was e-mailed.  Nothing was text messaged or called on the telephone.  It just was somehow known that rehearsal was not today.  This is not the first time this has happened.  So I continued to think.  If nothing was communicated verbally, then it had to be communicated non-verbally.  And then it hit me.  The only way this could happen is if the music students of Venezuela had TELEPATHIC ABILITIES.  With their superhuman communication skills, it just entered their minds sometime in the middle of the day: there is no rehearsal today.  And I, a simple human American, do not have telepathic abilities, which is why I was the only one who showed up today.  These people are more talented than I imagined.

Saturday and Sunday were devoted to concerts.  I played with the orchestra in a Halloween concert that featured show tunes like Beetlejuice and Phantom of the Opera, and also classics like the Sorcerer's Apprentice, Night on Bald Mountain, Firebird Suite, and Carmina Burana.  I managed to find some pictures of the event, cause I was too busy playing.  This was unlike any concert I've ever played in, because there were lights, a rock band, choir, acrobats, three dance companies, and other circus performers there to do an entire routine to all of our songs.  There was enough light that we didn't need stand lights, but it got really annoying whenever I was trying to play and the strobe light was going on.

We also had to paint our faces or wear a costume for the event.

(Saturday)

(Sunday)

On Friday, we had our second field trip in our Tropical Ecology class.  This time we went to the Spine Arbustal.  Which is like desert, cause it's really hot and dry and has a lot of cacti.  We did the same environmental tests we did in the cloud forest.  A lot of people find these trips annoying, because it takes away from their free time on Fridays, but I like exploring the different parts.

 (yellow spine cacti are endemic to Venezuela ^)

(It was bright out. Squinty eyes)

(We got bored. So we fed the ants some bread and watched them go crazy on it)

So yeah.  Busy busy busy.  Lots of things planned for the last few weeks here.  And cracking down at the music school.

Cloud Forest

On Friday we had a field trip with our Ecology class to the cloud forest of Mucuy.  There, we were supposed to measure the environment (evaporation, temperature, wind velocity), and collect different kinds of leaves to determine by their shape, color, texture, and many other attributes, what their place was in the environment.  Since it had been raining all week, literally gray and drizzly every day with little bouts of harder rain, it was cold.  Also, we were up at a higher altitude.  So we wore jackets and pants and gloves and hats.  Once we got to the park we were going to, we had another hike up slick wet tree root and leaf-covered ground in order to get to the more secluded area we were going to study.  The forests are so dense there, and as we got higher up, the path became more narrow and less visible due to the brush covering it.

Once we got there and started collecting information and leaves, I realized that the heavy duty boots I got from a hardware store had been a good investment.  They were rain boot-type boots only a little shorter, and an ugly tan-beige color.  But they kept my feet dry, and so many other people didn't bother to get some, so their feet were all wet and cold.  Since we were told to be there at 8 AM, everyone was tired.  Some people had chosen to go out the night before.  I didn't think that was a smart decision.  So I was there, bright and early.

While we were there, I got to see some things people don't normally see.  The rain forest is home to the most species in the world due to the perfect climate conditions of being warm and wet most of the time.  Therefore, there is not much organization to how things grow here.  But it was still really cool.  I got to see a butterfly that had just come out of its chrysalis, and trees that were growing in the branches of other trees, so their roots were hanging down in midair.  We got to touch them, and they felt just like smooth sticks.  I guess i'm not surprised, but they did seem like they'd be a little slimy or soft.

(those are roots hanging down, not vines)

While we were there THE SUN CAME OUT.  It was like a beacon of hope to all of us who thought we would never be able to wear our tank tops and short sleeves to school anymore.

After we were done, we exited the canopy of the forest and walked into the beautiful warm life-giving sunlight.  And there was another mountain view, of course.

Yesterday was just as gorgeous all day, so I went to a little valley with a couple of friends and enjoyed time with them at a restaurant for most of the day.  Which means today is catch up on homework day.

"Vacation"

I was going to spend my 10-day Fall Break travelling with some Venezuelan friends, but then they decided the morning of the trip that next week would be a better week to go.  Since I have classes, I am not able to go with them and did not have time to make any more plans for my Fall Break because every other person had already left.  So it was wasted.

However, I decided to make the most of the free time I had remaining in the break.  Since about mid-September I have been playing with the local El Sistema youth orchestra, in hopes to learn more about how it works and why it is so successful.  I went to the director and asked if I could start observing the other classes, and he said yes, and helped me find all of the times and places of the rehearsals.  So far I have observed 4 classes: the Kinder Music program, which is ages preschool and kindergarten singing songs and learning dances and sounds; the Mozart Orchestra, which is ages 6-9 with beginning strings, percussion and winds; the Children's Orchestra, which is ages 9-13 with intermediate level instrumentalists; and and Instrument Repair class. Having played in the Youth Orchestra, I think that also counts as having observed it. So far it is very interesting.  I want to observe a little more before I post anything on here though.

I was also given the great privilege to join the other music professors on a trip to another El Sistema music school in the nearby town of El Vigia (last mentioned as the town we flew into from Caracas upon arrival). We met at the Merida El Sistema building at 7 AM, and left quite on time when you're considering it was 12 Venezuelans. So we started on the way. But before we got there, we stopped for a break.  Pasteles and Empanadas at a small restaurant on the side of the road called El Sabor de Maria. When we arrived, I was under the pretense that I would observe the flute professor there, and maybe chip in here or there to get a little experience.  What I learned when the director gave us our instructions was that I would be teaching all of their flute students the whole time, and their flute professor would watch to see what I did. PRESSURE.  Teach. Kids. Flute. In. Spanish.  So I was introduced to the four flute students.  They were all at slightly different levels, but were more or less beginners.  So I took them through a couple technique exercises and helped them with notes.  And the best part was that they were actually learning and listening to what I said.  That I was impacting their musical education.  Next, the flute professor brought over four six or seven year old girls, saying that they wanted to learn flute but still didn't have instruments.  So I talked with them about the flute, a little of the history, the types of music the flute plays, and how sounds are produced.  I had them stick their finger into my headjoint while I played to let them see how the sound changed. I let them put their hand in front of my face while I played so they could feel how the air went across the instrument, not into it, and I helped each one of them produce a sound on the instrument before they left, which anyone will admit is a good feat because there are people who never seem to grasp how to play the flute.  They all left quite happy, and the older girls had me write down my facebook so they could friend me and ask questions if they had any.  The flute professor talked with me about what I had done with the girls and lent the technique book we'd been working out of to one of the students so that she could have it, because they would be working from the foundation that I laid that day.

It was a tremendously rewarding experience.  I could totally do that every day.

It's Cold/It's Hot

The mornings are the coldest part of the day.  A lot of times the cloud cover from the night doesn't allow the sun to peak through until 8 or 8:30 in the morning.  It's been raining a lot at night, so there's always clouds weaving in and out of the mountains.  It gets as cold as like 65 degrees.

I know. Break out the snow pants.

But once the sun comes out, which it always does, it goes right back to 80 degrees.  Which annoys me, cause I have to go to class around 8 or 8:30, and I don't want to wear a sweater but it's cold but I know in like a half hour I'll be burning up.  So today I woke up and was freezing and there was a guy with a weed whacker outside my window being obnoxious.  So I was a baby and wore a sweater. And as soon as I got halfway to school I regretted it.

I................have.........a...............BREAK! It is a WHOLE WEEK. I am doing FUN THINGS.  But you won't hear about it til after. Haha.

On a side note, I am really glad the internet is working today. It wasn't yesterday.  I would imagine every other day it doesn't work.  It's not that there's nothing, we actually have two internet connections at the school we can connect to.  It's just they usually quit letting people on after it hits about noon.  If this were to happen at home, it would be a catastrophe.  Restart the router 5 times, restart your computer 10 times, click on the connection incessantly, disconnect and retype the password, throw the router at the wall, call the internet company for a replacement. Here, oh the internet's not working? Silly internet.  Maybe tomorrow it'll feel like working.  This little netbook doesn't stay charged for very long, so I hate moving where I am, because your connection signal varies where you are. You could lose it. And that is more frustrating, knowing you had it and now you don't cause you had to move to an outlet to charge your computer.  Also, closing your computer and then wanting to get back on and you can't cause you weren't online when the internet decided it wasn't going to let anyone else on today.  But the people who were already online by then are allowed to keep going. But if they get offline, they are stuck. Stuck stuck stuck.

After I get back from break, I will be halfway done.

Food

I get a week for fall break!!!! Not this upcoming week, but the next.  I'm going somewhere cool, but I'm not going to tell anyone til I get back in the US. Cause everyone loves surprises.

I enjoy the people here.  I'm making a lot of friends, and even the people I don't make friends with are nice.  Except the weirdos that cat call and make kissy noises at the gringas.  The food here is delicious.  I learned how to make Pica Andina, a soup that is very common to Merida.  Maybe I'll make it a few times when I get back.  I love the natural ingredients in the foods here.  More or less everything is without preservatives. Cooking is a process, because everything is from scratch.  However, there are still the products that are factory made, like Coca-Cola, juices, and chocolate milk.

Hecho en socialismo = Made in Socialism. With Love. (because of the heart)

The propaganda here is to die for.

One thing the Venezuelans do best is desserts.  The pictures of all the desserts in my earlier posts are in fact better than they look.  Sooo goooood. I'm going to have to sneak some home.

The weeks are going by faster and faster here.  After the break, my trip will be over halfway over.

Soccer

On Sunday, I went to a soccer game.  It was Merida's team, Los Estudiantes de Merida, against somebody I don't remember.  I got some good photos and videos from it.  Unfortunately there were no vuvuzelas or large crowds of people, but there were police there to escort the referees off the field so people didn't throw things at them.  The game ended at a tie of 0-0, so it wasn't too exciting, but there were some close calls at scores.

In the morning I awoke to the usual sounds of birds. In the US, this would be fine, except these birds have a sound like a mix of crow, seagull, and parrot.  It sounds like someone is dying.

Then I walked over to where I could take the trolley.  I live across a viaduct, which is essentially a bridge.  I love the viaduct, even though no one is supposed to walk across it a night or people will try to rob you or gang up on you.  It's such a pretty view, and the bridge itself is fascinating to me.

This is my favorite thing about the bridge.  It says: GOBIERNO SOCIALISTA DE MERIDA. Or in English, SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT OF MERIDA.  It is so interesting to me.  I cross it every day, and I always make sure to look at it until I pass it.  It is a very blunt reminder of where you are, and what kind of life you must live.  Everything is painted colorful here. It is a stark contrast. Poverty in pretty colors.  I once heard that Chavez, the president, once gave an excuse as to why no one had air conditioning, and it was that Americans all had it so that they would not have to open their windows and enjoy the view outside.

This is a view from over the viaduct.

But anyway, once I boarded the trolley, I was on my way to the soccer stadium.  The trolley is the nicest, most technologically advanced bus in the whole city.  It runs on a cable in the middle of the road, on its own path.  But the best part about it is that it's completely free.

I like things that are clean.

But we finally reached our stop, and got off. I would not have known where to go.  Luckily I ran into a friend on the bus who was also going to the game.  Even if I had known the right stop, I would have not known where to go after that.  You had to double back a little, cross the street, and slip in between this little fence and a concrete wall.  That took you up a dirt path, which then got you to the stadium.  We bought cheap tickets, and then went inside and took our seats.

People organized their own pep bands to cheer for the team.

Their mascot is a bear.

 These guys thought it would be a good idea to climb on the fence.  It was the most reckless behavior of the game.  That little boy was so content with himself for climbing the fence even though the guy told him to stay down.

Hey guys!!! I have videos!!  Yay for cheering fans.  They were shouting or singing something for the entire game.