A video of landing at the Pasto Colombia airport

I found this video on You Tube and thought it was some great footage of what it is like to land at the Pasto Colombia airport. Just click on the following link to watch the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0H8D3XLG6I

Market

Yesterday we got to go to a Farmers Market, what an experience! The Dutch family that went with us asked us if we have anything like it at home. What a difficult question to answer. We have Mount Hope on Wednesdays where we can go and get produce and it is full and somewhat dirty, but to compare Mount Hope to the market that we went to, seems, well, ridiculous.

Our interpreter took us in the front door and we saw rows and rows of fruits and vegetables, some that we would see at home and some that we have never seen before. There was one lady who had what looked like wheat or rye that was picked out of the field that morning. Little children who are no more than eight are walking around carrying small bags full of goods; oranges, avocados, flowers, anything that you could sell. It was at that point when Franko the little boy the Dutch couple adopted decided he needed to go to the bathroom. The Dutch wife wanted to keep walking around and our interpreter told us absolutely not, he would not be able to find us again. The couple is tall, they are both about a head taller than anyone we have seen here. I thought it would not be possible that he would not be able to find us. At that point I had seen about an 1/8th of the market. Once we were all together we were taken to the chaos. Big baskets full of chickens, guinea pigs, rabbits, cats, and everywhere. Most were alive, some were close to dead, and a couple were dead. It made my stomach turn being in that space. We were taken out to the potato area where there is nothing except potatoes, people pushing potatoes on carts, people selling potatoes in small baskets and some people in front of whole rooms full of potatoes. During all of this you are walking through paths of mud. Then we were taken to a room where there was a peculiar smell. I thought it smelled bad, but Ken didn't seem to mind the smell. There were tan blocks everywhere, all of it sugar before it was refined. One lady gave us a taste, everyone thought it was fine, I thought it was horrible. We had been seeing these blocks in the supermarket before and we wondered what they were, now we know. According to the interpreter, all the fruits and vegetables that come to Pasto come from this market. The people from the country bring the brightly colored buses filled with goods from their region and then they also take a bus full of goods back filled with the things that are not common for their region. We are so glad that we got to visit the market.

Dancing - by Dad

I've been pushing off the idea of writing a post for a while now since my wife has been doing a great job and there is no sense in me interfering with that. But alas it is time for me write about my feeling in this whole experience (something men tend to do so easily ha ha). While the last three plus weeks have been some of the greatest memories that I will ever have there have been challenges as well. However, last evening was definitely one of the highlights for me. After our late dinner we came up to our room around 9:30 and decided that we would listen to the radio on the Internet so we could enjoy some American music. Of course the girls decided that it was time to do a little dancing. At first it was just the girls showing off there moves, until mom and dad decided to get in on the action. So here we were in our little 6 x 6 open floor space dancing to the music with big smiles on our faces even though they couldn't understand the music and we couldn't understand the girls. While we were dancing I thought about how happy the girls were living in our tiny hotel room and just spending time doing anything with us. They could care less about about the home we live in or what kind of car we drive or what jobs we have. They are feeling loved and that is all they care about. If we said that this is our home for the next ten years they would just go on with life happy as the moment before. I don't know at what point we as adults think that we need things to make us happy, but I certainly just want to be a kid again and get back to dancing.

English

The girls are learning more and more English. These are a couple of the words(phrases) that they know, some, thanks to Dora.
1. How are you? (They are also able to answer it with... good)
2. Clean up- (they usually sing the cheesy classroom song)
3. Song- The Itsy Bitsy Spider
4. Beautiful
5. Brush your teeth
6. Good Night
7. I love you
8. We did it
9. Oh man
10. Young lady (Tatiana picked that up first, it could have something to do with her attutude) :)
11. I'm the map
12. apple
14. They are working on the abc song, it still needs some work
15. jungle- The first English word which they still think is very funny!

Weather

Pasto is sitting on the Equator but the elevation is at 8,000 feet. The weather is unpredictable, to say the least. If the sun is out it is hot. If the sun goes behind the clouds, which it does quite a bit, you need that sweater or jacket right away, which explains why the girls are always wearing the one sweatshirt that we brought in every picture. We have actually run into a problem because the laundry service here takes a day and so the girls didn't have a jacket for a day while we had them cleaned. The last week or two the weather has been really nice in the morning but by the afternoon there are thunderstorms and a lot of rain. The girls are actually from a region south of Pasto and most of the people say it is very cold there and that is why they have the red cheeks. We are thinking it could be the cold, but it may also have something to do with the agressive way they wash their face.

Moving

This is the bathtub that the girls will sometimes spend an hour in at a time. They are very disappointed when they don't get to take two baths a day. Are we spoiled or what?

View from the corner of our room (I had to stand on the bed to take the picture.)

Tatiana on her bed and Kathrine in her bed, Tatiana sleeps in a crib without sides. Sometimes her feet are hanging through the wood posts. Kathrine sleeps in a crib and it doesn't seem to bother her at all.

We finally got to move, although it wasn't to Bogota as I have been wishing. The French family who has been living across from us got to go to Bogota on Sunday and the hotel owner asked us if we want the room that they had. It is just a touch bigger and the girls now have floor space so they can play on the floor. When Kathrine woke from her nap I stayed in the old room and Ken was in the new room and the girls carried our things across the hall. Every time Kathrine would get something new she would walk over and say "dormae papa". She stretched out the papa and the last syllable would be pitched a little higher than everything else. Very cute to hear! I am thinking she was saying papa's bedroom, but my Spanish friends will have to confirm that.

La Cochia

About 45 minutes from the city there is a beautiful lake called La Cochia that we got to visit. Our hotel owner set up a little bus with guides who speak some English. Then us and a Dutch family who also speak English went to the lake. The town is really interesting because the houses and the inn that we stopped at have some Swiss influence. The elevation of the lake is quite a bit higher than that of Pasto. The "highway" according to the tour guide was a good road though it was gravel most of the way and one of the most bumpy gravel roads that we have ever traveled on. The town is set up for tourism with people beside the road selling thier goods. The guides told us we would probably need warm coats and rain jackets because it is always cold and rainy at the lake. We had a few drops of rain and it was warm and sunny most of the day. Perfect weather. From the little town we got a boat (glorified canoe) ride across the lake to a island with a rain forest and we hiked to the back of the trail to a place with a 100 meter drop off into the lake, with a beautiful view. We ate lunch, the speciality, Rainbow Trout, agian with the heads attached and again Tatiana ate it, she actually cleaned her plate, I have no idea where she put it all. I got a couple fish bones and had a hard time finishing my trout becuase of the bones. The heads must be pretty common, because the Dutch couples little boy also ate his own, his mom's and my fish head. Maybe we don't know what we are missing.