Okay, I know, I still owe you a final blog from Colombia and the confession, that I am actually back in Europe. Now, here they are both.
I spent the last month in Colombia (which was September) working at a coffee finca close to Pereira. Which means I could still go to football trainings and meet my friends from Pereira but I was living close to the middle of nowhere, which, as I found out, is actually a really pretty place. With lots of colourful birds. Even though I was there, when the coffee harvest started, I did not actually do any coffee picking. I was there as an English teacher. The finca is part of the Fair Trade network and therefore needs to provide some sort of community service, so they have a resident English teacher to teach the children of the workers who live there as well and to teach in the local primary school. I had a huge place all to myself and was served delicious meals three times a day, grand style. It was a little bit scary, I must admit, but the people there were all really nice to me and I learned a lesson that I will never forget:
When I first arrived, I had my meals served on the terrace, where also the landlord was eating, and while many times we ate together, there were also many times when he was away and I was sat there on my own, being served and felt really strange. Even more so, when I knew that in the kitchen just behind me, the workers and cooks were eating, chatting a laughing. It wasn't that I felt lonely, it was just that I felt really stupid because, in my point of view, I shouldn't have had a higher status than them. I noticed soon that, just like in the finca I used to work in in Mexico, the hierarchy in this place was much more established than in "real" life in the same country. It was very obvious in everything, where everybody stood, and clearly I stood somewhere between the landlord and his children and the "normal" workers, which was a position I didn't like at all. Most of the time I didn't care but it became very obvious at mealtimes and then I hated it.
Well, turns out that the hierarchy, important as it may seem on the outside, can quickly become redundant, when you start making friends. I started spending more time in the kitchen and chatting to the cooks and soon enough I found myself eating dinner in the kitchen with the "normal" workers whenever the landlord was out. I felt much better that way and I think so did everybody else. Proves how overrated all these hierarchies are. But who would have guessed that you could actually step down in a hierarchy, by making the right friends, so that you would feel better? I am glad I found that out soon enough.

Besides eating and teaching I went for walks and bird watching a lot, seeing that I was finally somewhere where there was no city and it was actually worth it. The landscape there is heavily altered mainly by coffee and other plantations but also being developed at a rapid pace to provide luxury homes for rich people from the city who decide that they don't want to live in the city any more. Soon there will not be much nature left but probably the people who bought these homes don't realize that.

The teaching was a rather interesting experience as well. The primary school I was teaching at had about 40 students all together, from 1st to 6th grade, meaning each class had around 7 pupils. They had a total of two classrooms and two teachers. The children of one grade were also not necessarily all the same age as they started school more when it was convenient for their parents than at a certain age (although most of them started as early as possible as that was the most convenient for most parents). I always had only one grade at a time so my groups were mainly around 7 pupils, which was my salvation, I couldn't have handles many more. Just like in Mexico, silence in a classroom is not a very common thing in Colombia (at least not where I was teaching). May it be for that reason or any number of other reasons that in every group I had a few smart children who understood and learnt quickly and several who found it really hard to learn (partly this was also due to age differences). I must admit, for a teacher the European school system would definitely be less stressful to teach in, I don't know if it is necessarily better for the children - from the fact that people in Colombia are just so much more sociable than in any European country I know, I would almost say, it probably isn't. Which is why I just accepted the fact that their learning would be slower and did not try to keep them silent. The truth is they all want to learn English and English language skills in Colombia are on average a lot higher than in Mexico and also help to get a job which the children know, so eventually they will learn after all.

Now, there isn't that much more I could tell you. I finally managed to upload my pictures so you can get an idea of what it looked like where I was. The main reason, why I left the country after three months, stupidly, is the fact that I want to go back. Due to a rather annoying visa system, coming back next year is easier now that I did not extend my visa. Which is why now I am back in Italy with the same family I stayed with before. I had a month-long battle with Italian bureaucracy and I lost so I am still not allowed to play matches with the local football team. But I am hoping that next year, in the next country the tides will turn and I will finally get to play properly again.

In the meanwhile, stay strong to everyone who is in a place where the next months will be much too cold or much too hot and enjoy life as much as you can no matter what.