Beyond privileged

 

We met with one of our Children’s Club Coordinators last weekend.

 

Here is part of what she said to us:

The Club has definitely brought us closer to God.

We have to depend on him for everything.

It’s made us more united too.

 

I felt beyond privileged to have even the smallest part

in something that has this kind of impact.

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It’s working!

 

We were back on the Coast to follow up on the training

we’d provided a month before. We’d left the participants in the training

the task of writing a lesson and with very few exceptions,

THEY DID IT!

 

This team of experienced Sunday School teachers

had come up with a set of fun, contextualized materials

for the children of their denomination.

 

I confess that I had doubted.

But I shouldn’t have.

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The rains have arrived on the Coast

 

Remember there was a drought on the Coast?

 

We were back there last week and our visit coincided

with the arrival of the rains. And of course,

being Colombia, it wasn’t just a gentle drizzle

but great lashing sheets of rain.

 

And the effect on the countryside was astonishing:

instant greenness on every side.

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This is cute

 

My friend was telling me how she learned English:

I didn’t go to classes, I just learned the chewing gum way.

 

She means, informally, just whatever happened to stick.

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The bus journey to Cali

 

I spent some of my Easter holiday on a farm outside Cali

(I milked a cow!) and I had to get the bus back to Cali on Easter Saturday.

 

The journey took about an hour but it was packed with incident:

Two milk churns were secured behind the front passenger seats;

A sack of thyme was thrown on;

An older woman got on and was persuaded to get off by her hard-faced daughter:

You’ll be far too early if you go now!

They just want me to stay so I can make them their breakfasts, the older woman said.

A group of women got on but someone was missing.

Obligingly the driver reversed back so one of the women could jump off and shout to someone unseen

if they had seen their friend. But they hadn’t so we went without her.

A nurse got on and asked for a free ride for a colleague

who stood on the step so her trip wouldn’t be registered.

 

Good value for $5000 (£1.50).

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Cali Graffiti

 

Cali was a dream for someone who writes a blog like this

because it was covered in graffiti.

From the leftwing:

Camilo Lives;

Each heart is a revolutionary cell;

Through the obvious:

There will be no peace while there is hunger.

And the local:

Down with the festishism of the Mío [Cali’s bus network], let the buses burn!

To the downright obscure:

I rejected Artemis and accepted Jesus Christ.

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Now I’ve seen it all

 

I thought I had seen it all when I once saw a calf

being loaded into the boot of a taxi in Bogotá

but in Cali I saw a taxi full of young men, some crouched in the boot,

holding on to a motorbike that had one wheel in the boot of the taxi,

and one running along on the road outside.

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