Adventure

2007-07-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Home sweet home. Hogar dulce hogar (one of the two Spanish proverbs I picked up during one year). Some interesting observations I made during my first week here were that 1) streets have streetsigns 2) the cars are all very new (I felt like taking a picture of a parking lot, I was so impressed) 3) we are all very white 4) many Finns are still racist 5) my associations to the word "international" have changed. My family tells me that I am more relaxed now than before. They are all expecting me to get one of my...nervous break downs any minute but I am surprisingly calm. The calm before the storm perhaps?

Last week I started to look into what I might be doing for the next year. I want to do some teaching studies and work in something related to teaching. I'd love to have a fulltime job cause I won't be studying fulltime and it'd mean a steady income. I'd also love to be able to both study and work here in Kirkkonummi since it'd make my life a million times easier - in other words I'd have less things to worry about. I started updating my CV today and bought a new card for my phone in order to be able to put a mobile phone numer on the application. Baby steps.

The most interesting thing I've taken part in here in Finland was unquestionably the wedding of my sister's American host sister. Let me explain: my sister was in the US the same year I was, and one of her host sisters came to Finland to study some years ago and fell in love with a Finnish guy. Last weekend they got married in Vammala in central Finland. The wedding was beautiful. Kate had invited friends form Spain, France, The Netherlands, and Russia so the atmosphere was international. Her family from the US was there of course.

2007-07-22T13:25:00.000-07:00

Back in Finland. I came back a little more than a week ago. I gave myself the one week to recuperate but I don't think it's quite enough. I mean, jetlag is a good excuse to be tired the first couple of days and after that I guess I'll just have to keep repeating the magic word "culture chock" indefinitely.

Getting out of Venezuela was a lot harder than I thought - and the ones of you who know me well know that usually I prepare for the worst (like all true realists). You might remember that I had a visa extension pending and that I paid a guy almost 200 000 in order to get the extension in 15 days. So...exactly 15 days after leaving the papers in Onidex (4 days before my flight to FIN) Jose and I went to Onidex to ask for my passport. Surprise surprise, Mr. Pedro did not have it. He made a phonecall to somebody and told us to call him the next day around one (we got his cellphone number - two of them). On Saturday Onidex was naturally closed and Mr. Pedro was not answering the phone - any of them. On Monday Onidex was open as normal but Mr. Pedro wasn't working. And surprisingly the other guy working on visa matters was totoally incapable of telling me where my passport is situated, so we had to wait until the next day (one day before my flight) to enquire about the matter.

I was in class the next day when Jose drove to Onidex and sent me a message saying "they still don't have it". I don't know how I managed to stay calm and finish my class. Immediately when the class was over I dashed to the nearest centro de comunicaciones (where one can make chep phone calls) and called the Finnish embassy. I was told that they can not really do much - just call Onidex and pressure them to give me my passport back - but they told me to go back to Onidex and refuse to leave until I have my passport. I guess the lady at the embassy didn't know where Mcbo is situated, cause it would have been impossible for them to get me my passport from Caracas before the office closes. Nonetheless, we went back to Onidex and explained one more time that my flight is early the nest morning and that I really need my passport in order to travel. Mr. Pedro started to sweat and make phonecalls. Meanwhile I called the guy in Aiesec Caracas (Risho) who is normally responsible for all the visa stuff and asked if he could get my passport from Onidex in Caracas and bring it to the airport the next morning. He agreed to do it. I owe him BIGtime. So, Risho went to Onidex, picked up my passport, I screamed out JAAAAAAA in relief and headed for the next obstacle.

Maybe ca 10 days ago I had made a reservation for a flight from Mcbo to Ccs for Wednesday morning. I decided to call the airline to inform them that I would be traveling without my passport and ask again if I understood correctly that I can check in only 20 kg of luggage. Boy was I surprised when the person I spoke with told me that I have no recervation. And man did I panic when she said the flight was full and I'd have to take a later flight. I made a reservation to the later flight thinking it's better than nothing and started calling all other airlines to see it I could get an earlier flight with them. No such luck. At this point Jose decided that we should drive straight to the airport to pay for the ticket, before they sell it to someone else or do something else unexpected. At the airport I explained my situation again and they told me that if I'd come to the airport early I'd probably be able to take the early flight in case some passengers don't show up.

We went to the airport at 4 a clock the next mornging, there was space on the flight, I cried my eyes out and lost my ticket in one of the passport controls, found it again and made the flight. I Ccs I waited for Risho and tried desperately to finish the Venezuelan novel I've been reading for the last six months. I did not finish the novel but Risho did show up with my passport. Then I just had to check in (a process that took 2 hours of standing in line) and spend my last bolivares. I bought some chocolate. I wanted to buy rum (spelling?) but the guy in the shop told me I can't take liquids inside the plane. later my (disapointed) brother told me the guy was lying. Anyways, I made it to the plane to Paris and I made it to the plane from Paris to Helsinki and my family was at the airport waiting for me. We drove home to Kirkkonummi, ate some (Finnish) meatballs and strawberries and went for a long walk. It feels good to be back home.

2007-07-02T17:49:00.000-07:00

I'm leaving in 9 days. I doubt I'll be able to squeeze in more than one entry a week, although maybe I should since I didn't write last week, so I hope I'll be able to write once more before I leave.

The new thing in town is the American cup, or the "Copa America". The USA just lost against Paraguay and yesterday I watched (in an international crowd: Nivy from Australia, Kathryn from the US and Rocio from Peru) Mexico vs Ecuador...or to be more honest Gabriel Marquez (spelling?, first name correct?) vs all the other players on the field. No one was nearly as good looking as him so it was a pretty boring game. No, seriously I do enjoy watching football/soccer and it's not just the guys I'm watching. So, the American cup involves all countries of the American continents (north, south and central). Even though I must admit that today I begun to wonder whether Canada is involved. All the games are played in Venezuela, so the stadium-cities have been cleaned up. Many streets have gotten a new coat of asphalt and all foodstands (all the "streetfood") have gotten their copa america sign. The mascot, "Guaky" is a kind of parrot (Guacamaya, in Spanish), which is dying out. So it is kind of nice. It's almost impossible to get tickets to the games, but some of my friends managed to see some of the games on close range. Some say that all the tickes have been sold to Chavistas because the government does not want to risk protests or the like at the stadium. So when Chavez got up at the opening game the crowd was cheering.

A propos Chavistas, there's been some discussion on the meaning of the word, that the people it refers to. Many Chavez supporters do not want to be called Chavistas. They say that the word is used to refer to uneducated masses, and obviously no one wants to be associated with ignorance. The paradox is that Chaves is a populist president and that especially the lower classes support him. I know several people who are leaving the country because they don't like Chavez' politics and they are all university graduates. Kind of interesting I think. I still try to keep out of politics cause there seems to be no objective source. I am still very much confused when it comes to discussing Venezuelan politics, I'm just writing about what I the people around me are talking about. Pretty ignorant.

2007-06-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

My excuse for not writing last week is food poisoning. I'm not entirely sure what caused it, because I ate some pretty strange stuff that week, but the most likely things are the two hotdogs I had on Sunday evening. By the way, those were my first Venezuelan hotdogs. I thought that after a 11 month long training my stomache would finally be ready to deal with a classic (in a Venezuelan novel I've been reading, the main character eats hot dogs all the time) but no. As Nivy (the new Austrailan trainee) put it (as I was throwing up): "Elina, look with your hair color, you'll never be able to eat like a Venezuelan". I know she was trying to be supportive, but that was not exactly what I needed to hear at that particular moment. Obviously I'm never going to eat another hotdog as long as I live.

The foodpoisoning incident started on Tuesday. Jose took me to a hospital where they gave me an IV and made sure I stopped throwing up. I did not go to work the next day (a Venezuelan probably would have). On Thursday I felt a lot better and started eating three meals a day. On Friday was Kasia's farewellparty and even if I did not drink a drop (doctor's orders) I felt badly hangover the next day and did not go to work. This week I've been working normally, although I tried to cancel my morning class in Thursday, because of a bloody visa extension I've been trying to do since March.

So...the visa extension operation - or mission impossible as I like to call it - sarted the same week as my food poisoning. On Monday Jose and I went to Onidex (the visa place) and asked what I have to do in order to extend my visa, which expires in less than two weeks. The Onidex guy said I can extend it by one year, which costs 300 000, or not extend it at all (and work illegally the last three weeks). He also gave us a list of things I need in order to extend the visa: a paper saying that I am a student, a paper saying where I live, stamps worth 300 000 bolivares and...2 passport pictures. Bueno, the passport pictures I had since March, so that was no problem. Mayra at Ruge wrote me a piece of paper saying that I am doing an iternship at Ruge, which does not exactly mean that I am a student but kind of implies that. The problematic part was the piece of paper stating where I live. Without getting into too much detail I'll just say that it was a hassle and that the woman who was supposed to sign it refused cause she is crazy and doesn't like foreigners (this was what I was told). Well. On Thursday morning, the day my visa expired, Jose and I went to Onidex, presented the papers, stamps and pictures, and said that I'd like to extend my visa. Alright, said the Onidex guy (not the original but another), that'll take three months. WHAT!!!! Jose burst out in laughter. I was not very amused. Or...continued the guy, you can pay me 200 000 and I'll get it for you in 15 days. What choise did we have. I had to get back to work while Jose went to get money. My first experience with blatant corruption. I never want to experience that again.

2007-06-08T13:43:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention: maybe some of you have heard about the demonstrations going on here in Vzla. Well, Chavez decided to shut down an "opposition" TV station called RCTV and people are demonstrating cause they see the shutting down of RCTV as an act against the freedom of press. As far as I´ve understood, the shutting down of RCTV was not against the law, but still it is clear that the station was shut down only because it does not support Chavez so people are not too happy about that. There have been demonstrations in Caracas and Maracaibo. One evening our classes were canceled because of a demo. Mayra called from Ruge as Anna and I where walking out the door, saying that theer are no classes and that we have to stay indoors the rest of the evening cause it might be dangerous to go out. Nothing dramatic happened that evening and even though the students (the students seem to be the ones organizing all the demos) have continued demonstrating there has not been any more talk about the situation being dangerous.

2007-06-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

Sorry for not writing last week. My cousin Anna is here so I´ve been kind of busy - which is a good thing. Today we went to the guajiro market (or one of them), the one where they sell crafts. Yesterday we went to the center and Lia Bermudez (art/cultural center) where there were two exibitions. Last week we went to Maczul, where here was another exibitions. One artsy thing per week might be enough. I´ve tried to do something with Anna every day and it´s so much easier to go places when I have someone to go with. Unfortunately Anna was sick last week for three days (I think it was the patacon we shared) so she couldn´t do anything. I think tomorrow we´ll go back to the Guajiro market to spend some more money and maybe on Saturday we´ll try to got to the gaita bars near my place in Santa Lucia.

On Monday and Tuesday we went to the cinema. on Monday we saw a movie called...The Next Victim (directly translated rom the Spanish title "la Proxima Victima). Bon Jovi is in it. The other film we saw was a French one called The Russian Puppets (directly tanslated from the Spanish "Las Muñecas Russas). It was great! If you saw "una casa de Locos" /L'auberge Espagnol and liked it you´ll like this one. It was kind of like a sequel to "Una Casa de Locos".

Anna brought me some Finnish newspapers and I´ve been reading through them. Finland looks strange. "Normal" people look like activists and the whole atmosphere is so very different from my surroundings here in Vzla. Anna told me that I´ll have a HUGE culture chock when I go back to Finland. One evening we went to a birthdayparty and everybody was dancing merengue and salsa and nobudy was drunk. Anna said that the men here are sooo different from Finnish men.

2007-05-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

I have to be getting back to work. But what to write...Anna, my cousein is coming to Maracaibo tonight. I am looking forward to it and at the same time I am a bit nervous cause I´m afraid she is going to get bored. I mean,
I have to work, and obviously I can´t send her wandering off by herself - out of the question.

I think my cultural adaptation curve is pretty fucked up. At the end of your year abroad you are supposed to feel integrated and like "now my life is here" and "I don´t want to go back". But insead I feel that I am badly integrated and even though I know it will be hard as hell to leave this place (because of the people I´ve met) I don´t feel like I could stay here forever. As I think I´ve said a couple of times before.

I am just so tired of playing the part of a foreigner. People will never stop correcting my Spanish and again and again they start "here in Veenzuela" this and "here in Venzuela" that, as if it would be my first week in Venezuela. All the time I have to listen to comments about my whiteness and I still haven´t learned to move my ass properly. I think part of the problem is that I am happy when peple can understand me and I love dancing. But the people around me want me to speak "correctly" and to move my ass "correctly". Bloody hell, I´ve got less than two months here n Venezuela, let me just reax and enjoy, will you! - I feel like saying.

And I also feel like the pople don´t know me. Of course I can´t blame them, cause they only got to know me now. And naturally they make generalisations and assumptions. Some think I am an angel - what a joke - and others that I never wear make up, that I never get angry, never loose my temper etc. It´s like they don´t think I am human at all.

I think my problem is that I am just a little tired.

2007-05-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we started a new book in Spanish, so now I am intermediate instead of beginner. I am intermediate in salsa and Spanish, wow.

Aiesec is a student-run organization. The idea is to make the world into a better place and create leaders in the process. One, or the main, or the most visible, activity is to organize traineeships to students who have just graduated or are in the process of graduating. There are four kinds of traineeships you can apply for: development, educational, IT, and management. I applied for a development traineeship but ended up doing an educational one. Aiesec tries to affect commuities in a positive way and I guess one of those ways is intercultural exchange.

Nivy, the Australian trainee arrived in Mcbo on Sunday. She is living with another trainee, Nneka, from Nigeria. They share a room and live with a family. Does not sound like a dream come true but Nivy is not complaining. Like Kasia and I, Nivy did a two week training in Caracas and loved it. She met some nice people and was not at all happy to leave. But she is being a really good sport and with her bubbling personality I think she´ll have a million new friends in no time.

Last Friday we had a teachers meeting (or teachers and coordination) called "teachers' coffee break") at Ruge. I had a culture choque. We were not really informed beforehand was the meeting was going to be about, we were just told to bring something for everybody to eat (hence the baking). Well, the "coffee break" started when the coordination handed down a booklet to all of us with the new rules of Ruge. Then we read through the rules one by one. Basically the booklet was about our duties as teachers and th duties of the coordination and manintenance (=cleaning lady). Of course there were some questions on the part of the teachers and some criticism. One problem is how to deal with canceling classes. Basically we are not allowed to cancel classes, that is, the teacher can never be absent. Seems fair enough but what about if you are sick? Our favorite coordinator said that she works when she is sick. Sounds kind of like what my room mate said when I had a cold in September: "if you can talk you can work". That´s how I got dengue by the way; my immunity system was low cause I did not rest and take care of that blooy cold I had at the time. At one point she lost her cool and started shouting: why do you work here then if you don´t like it. I felt like I was back at Passford House Hotel in England working as a waitress.

In our contract it says that we work up to 40 hours a week and get paid 900 000 bolivares a month regardless how many hours we work. 40 hours teaching a week is a lot (to say the least), and fortunately I´ve had 40 hours in my schedule only once. But last weeks I had more, I had 40,5. I informed the coorination immediately. The coorination said that they thought we (Kasia and I) work unlimited hours, that is we could work as much as the insitute is open (5x12 plus 4,5). I couldn´t believe it. I guess workers are really treated like shit here.

I know I am kind of whining, but maybe it is good that you know whay I am not extending my stay.

2007-05-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

What luxury, I am able to access internet two days in a row!

Our beloved Spanish teacher, Alejandra, quit work at Ruge last Monday. Our classes with her were wonderful, something Kasia and I looked forward to each week. We'd discuss and compare the Venezuelan, Finnish and Polish cultures and the classes were an effective way to cope with culture chock. Alejandra had herself been as Poland as an Aiesec trainee some years ago so she knew what we were going through. But on Monday she quit, and I got a new Spanish teacher - Andrea. This time I have private classes, cause Kasia already has classes with Andrea. Kasia and Andrea have made a deal, Kasia teaches Andrea French and Andrea teaches Kasia Spanish. I'm kind of inspired by the change in teachers. The classes with Alejandra were hilarious, but I think Andrea is going to make me work harder to improve my Spanish (which is a good thing).

2007-05-06T14:15:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you are thinking that life in Mcbo must be incredibly boring if Elina has nothing better to write about than baking. Well, in fact I am pround to say that yesterday I went to see the opening film of a European film festival here in Mcbo. How about that.

The festival is being organized by Honza, a Czech trainee here in Mcbo. I guess he is showing movies he likes, that are easily available, and that have Spanish subtitiles or have been dubbed into Spanish. The opening movie was The Full Monty, a great British production I recommend to anyone. Kasia and I walked to la plaza republica, where the movie was to be shown, straight from our salsa class (we start intermediate 2 next Saturday). The movie was scheduled to start at 7 and I think we started watching at 9. The audience was modest, consisting mostly of Aiesecers and Honza's students (and security guards taking a break).

Honza and some guy (I didn't catch his name) opened the event by saying that this film festival is being organized in order to show that films are made outside of Hollywood as well. Another British film (Trainspotting) was scheduled for later the same night, but when we arrived to the restaurant where the movie was to be shown we found that the place was closed - welcome to Venezuela. Today a movie is being shown in another park. I don't remember the name of the movie but I think it's Czech. The film festival is supposed to continue until the middle of July.

2007-05-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

Today I baked pulla (Finnish coffee bread). On Friday we're supposed to have a meeting in Ruge, coordinators and teachers disussing work at Ruge, and everybody is supposed to bring somehting to eat. I know that my coworkers would be interested in trying something Finnish. In fact, I think they thought I'd make somehting Finnish for the Cristmas party we had at Ruge, but baking was just too difficult to arrange back then.

I knew that it would not be a piece of cake to bake here. I'd been thinking about baking since Christmas. Once I even went as far as buying flour and butter. I was determined to bake for Christmas even though I could not find any cardemom or yeast at the supermarket, but in the end it turned out that baking for Christmas was a mission impossible in Mcbo. I kind of gave up on the idea until my sister Ulla brought some cardamom and yeast from Finland when she came for a visit in January. And since I have felt for sometime already that the countdown for my departure has begun, and I have to seriously start doing all those things(/all that baking :)) that I want to do before returning to Finland.

So today I bought flour and butter again and started experimenting. I brought the wrong kind of flour, used a brownish sugar that smells different from white, and used powdered milk for baking for the first time in my life but managed to bake. The pulla/coffee bread does (surprise surprise) not taste like the pulla I've baked in Finland, but It's edible and I'm going to serve it to my friends whether they like it or not.

2007-04-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting dream a few nights ago:

I was on a beach in a foreign country. Some of you know that it is my habit to look for shells on the beach, in order to make necklases or as souvenirs, so I was on the beach looking for shells. As I was looking I found something surprising - a HUUGE shell. I started to dig it up, and it was immence. I had never seen a shell like that before, it was the size of a dog. I thought the shell was wonderful, it was so beautiful and somehting I never expected to find, a total surprise. I began to think about how I could get it carried home (to Finland). But I realized that it would be incredibly difficult to get the shell to Finland. It wouldn´t fit into my suitcase and it would be impossible to carry, it was so heavy. So reluctantly I had to let go of the idea of bringing the shell with me.

To me it is pretty obvious what the shell refers to. I have found something here in Venzuela that I never expected to find, something valuable and beautiful, but it is extremely difficult - if not impossible - for me to bring what I´ve found here over to Finland.

Another thing: we have two new trainees here in Venezuela: a girl from Australia and a guy from Nigeria. The girl is right now in Caracas doing here training for Ruge and the guy arrived this morning in Maracaibo. I don´t have a lot of contact with the other trainees here in Maracaibo, except for Kasia cause I se her at work every day, but I think I might be seeing more of these two new ones. The Australian will be working with Kasia and me in Ruge and the Nigerian´s working place (the Wallstreet Institute) is really close to where I live. Nice!

2007-04-23T10:40:00.000-07:00

This week I am supposed to let Ruge know whether I want to extend (correct?) my contract. So finally I had to I make up my mind, and I´ve decided to return to Finland in July. If I´d have all the time and money in the world I would stay. But I want to get a teacher´s certificate in Finland, in order to be a "qualified" teacher, and need to study didactics or (pedagogy or whatever it´s called) during one year to obtain that. So one more year studying full time at a uni in Finland, which means that I have to save some money.

In addition, the life I have here in Venezuela right now is kind of a temporary arrangement. What I mean is that I can´t imagine living a life like this for a longer period of time. One year is long, but still I knew from the beginning that it is one year, in other words a limited period of time. And when I say that I can´t imagine "living like this" for a longer period of time I mean: not having enough money to be independent. Don´t get me wrong, I am happy here, but my life is limited in a way that I don´t feel comfortable with. I don´t have enough money to meet people whenever I want to, or go to the movies or have coffee with friends etc. Of course I do meet friends, and see movies and have coffee, but very randomly and only if somebody is kind enough to offer me a ride. And most of the time that kind person is José.

So I´ll return to Finland in July, graduate, find a job, earn some money, study one more year and then see again where I want to go and what I want to do. Tell me please that I´m doing the right thing.

2007-04-16T10:28:00.000-07:00

What should I write about. I have some new students and I passed from basico 3 to intermediate 1 in salsa...what else...I finally learned how to conjugate Spanish verbs in the present and discovered that Venezuela is a racist country after all.

One of the few things I read about Venezuela before coming here was that it is the most diverse country in the world, when it comes to the population. From the beginning of my stay here people have told me: here you have people of every color and everybody lives together in harmony, there is no discrimination based on skincolor. I didn´t quite swallow that since I didn´t have to say a word and people would classify me as American. I mean, people here say that there are Venezuelan blondes as well, and I actually met one girl in Caracas who is as blonde as me, but seriously speaking I am an odd bird here. In the street people (or "men", I should say) spak English to me and as I´ve said before, make jokes about dollars etc. So even if there are people of all colors in Venezuela still it is clear to me that blondes are regarded and treated as foreigners. Once some friends were going to the center to shop and said I couldn´t go with them cause then all the shopkeepers would put the prices higher. And it was not the first or last time I heard that.

About the racism: it exists. I mean, I think there is no country that would not be racist. Or help me define this. There are racists everywhere so I think everywhere is racist - including Venezuela. And last week I heard a story about racism in Venezuela: A black friend of mine was attending a kongress. In the evening a party was organized for the people attending the kongress in a famous night club. This friend of mine was not let in. First the bouncer said that it is a private party for people attending a congress. My friend showed her congress pass. Then the bouncer said that she is not dressed well enough. My friend went back to the hotel and changed (or something, to be honest I can´t remember her exact words) but was still not let in. And so on. Basically, it was clear that the bouncer was discriminating and that no matter what my friend did she was not going to be let in. And come on, this was not an individual telling a racist joke in a bar, this was the bouncer of a famous night club who was representing the policy of the night club, not his personal opinion. Racism - as far as I can tell.

2007-04-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

We went to Cumana. So Kasia and I spent easter with the family of my room mate. We left Maracaibo on Wednesday evening. I went to the bus station at 4 to see if we could get tickets (Kasia and I went to the bus station a week before to ask for tickets and they told us we could buy tickets one hour before) and when I arrived to the counter the guy said that all buses are full. I explained that last week we asked and blablabla, he said that he has one ticket for me. I said I need two cause I am traveling with a friend. He had two. I asked for the price and he said 110 000, which was 20 000 more than what they said the week before. Well, none of this was really surprising. What was unexpected though was that I met two foreigners at the station. A girl from England who is workin in venezuela and was looking for a ticket to get back to the place where she is working the same evening. And then there was a German guy who had been working as a teacher in Colombia and was now traveling in South America before returning to Germany. It was kind of refreshing to just sit there and watch people. And wait, and wait and wait.

The busride to Cumana took 20 hours. In Cumana we were taken to the beach straight away. Ranmarys´s family has a weekendhouse at the beach and we spent all three nights there. One evening I went to church with Kasia and one night we went fishing (although fortunately we didn´t catch any fish).

So now we´re back in Maracaibo and there will be no more long weekends for us to travel. Sigh. I´m still undecided about what to do next fall. I think I´ll take Emily´s advice and concentrate on finishing my studies but...there are different ways to go about that as well. I´ll keep you informed.

2007-03-30T20:12:00.000-07:00

I´m writing from a friend´s house. The friend is one of the coordinators from Ruge. She invited me to spend the night at her place. We had a small adventure coming here: the car died on the road. Some guys pushed the car so that we could continue our journey but the car died again. Another teacher from Ruge (who was getting a ride with Mayra, our favorite coordinator), Andrea, and I got out and tried to push the car. It did not move an inch. Actually I don´t know how that is possible, I think Mayra must have forgotten the handbrake on or somehting. Anyways, the car started and we continued the journey...until the car died again. Some kids who were selling roses in the street helped us by pushing the car, but it would not start. The kids pushed the car aside and when the engine finally started we drove to a gas station and waited for Mayra´s husband to come and help us out. He arrived, fixed to the car, and we drove to Mayra´s place. I guess it might have been kind of dangerous to get stuck in a "bad" neghborhood. Fortunately all went well.

Talking about danger on the roads, there is a special regulation here for easter. From today on until the end of easter you can buy alcohol in the stores only between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. I guess there is a lot of traffic during easter, and since people here drink and drive, the roads tend to get a bit dangerous. Therefore the regulation.

I still have no idea what I´m going to do for easter. I mean, sure, I have my plans but I´m trying to prepare for the dissappointment that I might not be going to Cumana after all. Plan A) Cumana, plan B) Punto Fijo plan C) Camping near a waterfall with guys from Aiesec,and plan D) staying in Maracaibo and relaxing. Punto Fijo is a new thing: About a week ago I sent a card to Maria Morales, a Venezuelan girl who was in the US as an AFS exchange student...9 years ago with me. Well, I have her address from 9 years ago and sent her a card last week - when I finally found a post office (or more truthfully speaking, when my friends where kind enough to take me to one). It turned out that she was not living in that address anymore (surprise surprise) but her mom was, and called her and told her that I sent a card. So on Tuesday Maria called me and we´re going to try to meet. She will be in Punto Fijo for easter so I that´s where I´ll go as well, if Cumana doesn't work out. Punto Fijo is a five hour busride away from Mcbo (Cumana 15 hour busride) so it should be easier to get there than to Cumana.

Just one more thing: forget what I said earlier about not feeling that I am
living in a thrid world country. On Monday Kasia and I went to the bus station (first time I went "downtown" without Venezuelan company) and I felt uncomfortable. I don´t really know why, cause I´ve been to the bus station before and felt more or less normal. I think it was the fact that I was with Kasia and somehow I noticed that the two of us were "the odd ones". Then, on Wednesday, our Spanish teacher, Alejandra, and her husband, took us on a guided tour of the center. They could not have made the tour easier or more pleasant for us, but still I felt that I will never ever be able to fit in. No matter how I dress or speak, people will always see me as a foreigner. Sometimes it is an undeniable advantage but at times I get tired of it. For example, once a taxidriver told me, when I asked how much the fare is, "ten million dollares". I corrected him: No, you have to say ten million euros, cause I´m not from the states. In the supermarket a worked said to me this week when I was paying: "American express", implying (as far as I could understand) that I have an American credit card, in other words that I am rich.

But the fact of the matter is that I have a nice life in Mcbo despite all the difficulties and I like it here. I think this is the first time in many years when I am not planning my next trip. I am happy here.

2007-03-23T11:39:00.000-07:00

Aiesec Maracaibo (the organization I came here with) is recruiting. They are having presentations and handing out fliers in the universities and hoping that lots of new and enthusiastic people would join. Or...actually I guess that they don´t want loads of new people instead they want a few "highquality members" who will be motivated and prepared to work. This morning I assisted at one of the presentations. The presentation started at 9.30 and I had to work at 10 so I had to give my contribution (hello, i am Elina from FIN) at the very beginning. It´s not like there were a lot of people there but I think this was the first time I had to speak Spanish in front of a group of strangers. I staggered a bit but I managed to say that my name is Elina, that I come from FInland, that I work at Idiomas Ruge and that everybody should join Aiesec. I think that´s pretty muhc what they wanted me to do. Anyways, I think already the fact that I was there, with my blod hair, buke eyes and foriegn accent was enough to demonstrate internationality and that Aiesec really does function.

I am still saving money for Cumana. One day I remembered that some of my foreign friends in germany saved money eating poatoes. They tried to come up with as many different ways as possible how to prepare potatoes. Potatoes are a nice change to pasta (which I have eaten for 8 months now) and I am pretty excited about my new discovery. And I know that potatoes are muuuuch more nutritious - my new healty life has begun. The down part is that here there are worms in the potatoes. I don´t know why Finnish potatoes don´t have worms. I like to think that maybe here the farming is more organic and therefore the potatoes also have worms. Go figure.

2007-03-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

5 min internet time

I have no money to check my mails daily or write this blog regurarly. Sucks. For now I am saving money to go to Cumana (eastern Venezuela) for easter. My room mate is from Cumana and she has invited Kasia and me to spend the holidays with her family. Throughout my stay here I have used my Finnish account, withdrewn money to travel etc. In February the card to my FIN account expired so I have my traineeshipsalary to live on...or survive on I should say cause it really is not enough to live comfortably, let alone travel.

These days I am trying to figure out what I´ll do when this traineeship is over. I want to do one more year of studies (in order to be a qualified - by Finnish standards - teacher) and need to save some money for that. Which means that I have to work in Europe for at least 6 months, cause there is no point saving bolivares (the local currency). I guess I might go to Finland for one month in July and then return here in order to spend a few more months with José, but I don´t know...I don´t know I don´t know. Any piece of advice you can give is more than welcome.

love you, miss you, want to talk to you, and see you soon!

2007-03-02T10:59:00.000-08:00

I have a new mobile! I bought the cheapest possible in the shop nearest my house. So now I can send sms/textmessags again.

So what has happened since the trip to Coro...

Kasia, José and I passed the level basico 2 in salsa and this Saturday we are going to begin leve basico 3. Kasia and I got 9/10 on the level test because we lack...how was it called...corporal expresseion, or something. Kasia is really angry about that. She says the discounted one point cause we are "katiras" (=blondes). I don´t care, I´m, just glad I passed the test, I was sure I´d fail. We´ve been learning all these new moves and I am so extremely lost most of the time. But dancing is still fun and the group really encouraging.

2007-02-22T08:13:00.000-08:00

Happy Valentines´my firends! (better late than never, I hope)

I have running water in my apartment but still no internet and still no air conditioning. And on Sunday my mobile broke down for good. You see, Kasia and went to Coro (north of Venzuela, beaches etc.) for the carnevals. Well, originally we wanted to go to Colombia, to Baranquilla, where they have the second biggest carneval celebrations after Rio de Janeiro, but I could not get days off from work (even though they are supposed to give me days off to join Aiesec activites and a carneval is clearly and Aiesec activity, don´t you think) and Kasia needed a visa so we didn´t go. Instead we went to Coro with a guy from work, one of the new teachers. So, in Coro we went to the Medanos, a kind of sand dunes that look like a desert. It was beautiful but we had sand blowing in our faces and we got sand everywhere - including my mobile. I used some force and managed to get most of the sand out of my mobile and all keys working except the key for "cero". I got by with my mobile without using cero until I had to recharge it (yesterday). There was a number cero in the recharge number, so I could not recharge. On Monday, when I have some money on my account, I´ll buy a new mobile. All of you who have seen my old one, the one I´ve been using the last six or seven years, will no doubt think that it´s about time I buy a new one.

So we went to Coro. It´s about a five hour busride from Mcbo and we had a good trip. We left on Sunday, and the same day we visited the Medanos (sand dunes). I was pretty happy to go there because people have been talking about the Medanos saying that it´s a place (one of the few near Maracaibo ;)) worth visiting. We stayed at Egui´s (the guy from work) Mom´s place. The second day, on Monday, we drove up a mountain to a cascade. We were not the only ones, the place was packed with people. But we picknicked there and walked around a little and it was nice. Then we drove to a port to watch the sunset. The next day we went to the beach. It was a bit cloudy and rainy but I still managed to get burned. We spent the whole three days with Egui and his Mom, who was driving us around evrywhere, and Egui´s family (aunt, grandma, cousins, etc.). It was nice to get to know yet another Venezuelan family. It´s always a priviledge to be invited to people´s homes, I think.

What else...I started teaching German last week. It´s really fun. The only problem it that there is not too much material to work with. And some of it is a bit...well, tell me honestly what you think: there is a book about "Peppi", a black boy living in Africa with his bird. Peppi is introduced in the following manner: "Peppi is a chocolatebrown niggerchild". Isn´t this racist?

Kasia and I have already started to plan the next trip, which is to take place during easter. My flatmate has invited us to Cumana (northeastern Venezuela, nice beaches) and I think we´ll go there. But I´m trying not to get too excited about it cause you never know where you end up.

2007-02-12T06:46:00.000-08:00

I just read my latest blogs. I guess I´ve been repating myself a bit and I think there has been more spelling errors in my blogs than usual. That is because I haven´t had enough internet time to read my last entries or to correct the spelling. And I guess it also means that there is nothing new going on.

Well, now I am out of water. Kasia has been struggling with the lack of water at her place (she seems to get it occasionally and at worst she has been some four days without running water) and I´ve felt blessed since I never had that problem, (We both know what it is like to live in Mcbo without aircondicioning by now and we´ve had to get used to cucarachas running around and car alarms going off at night etc.) but now I have to struggle with that as well. Yesterday my flatmate told me that we have water from 6-7 in the morninga and 7-8 at nights. Well, it´s a hell of a lot better than nothing but...I finish work at 8 almost all days so I´ll only be able to have running water in the mornings. And please keep in mind that we do not only use water for showers, but cooking, washing plates and clothes...sigh.

What else, yes, I actually have my flight back to Finland. I managed to change the flight when I called Air France the other day. I took the latest date possible, cause I am supposed to be working here for one year. I started on July 13th (I think) and I´ll leave Venezuela on July 11th. On Saturday I was told that I can stay and work at Ruge if I want. Well, we´ll see what happens. Right now it seems very unlikely that I´d stay here. But never say never, right?

2007-02-09T05:52:00.000-08:00

Well, the computer at my place is still not working so...but I´ve found a new internet café near my place, so maybe I´ll write more often in the future.

I have a cold. I´m trying to cure myself with a combination of Finnish traditional medicine such as garlic, combined with Venezuelan medicine. It´s been successful to the extent that I haven´t had to take days off from work but whereas a cold in Finland would last me for about a week it seems that a Venezuelan cold takes at least two weeks to conquor (spelling?).

Some news from work. We have three new English teachers, which means less work for mee! Jaaa! They are all Venezuelans, or Maracuchos. The Idiomas Ruge here in Mcbo is really getting busier, we´ve even had to open the second floor for teaching. The school has two floors and sofar we´ve been using only the 4 rooms downstairs. Upstairs we have four more rooms. Another (or a third) piece of news is that now we have uniforms. The guys have had their ruge shirts for a while now and since Monday we gilr got our white shirts with a ruge logo. I am not too excited about the uniforms, casu I don´t even have an iron to iron the shirt and besides I´m going to freeze to death wearing that thing. Usually I have a sweater and a scar on me in class...we´ll have to see how many t-shirts I can fit underneath the shirt.

What else...I´m still dancing salsa on saturdays and teaching german on the ocasional Sunday. Ah, and I migth be teaching german at Ruge in the future. Sofar there is no material and I guess they would prefer to ahve a native teacher. But since there seem to be people asking for German they have decided to give me a try. Or we´ll se what happens.

2007-01-30T07:32:00.000-08:00

Today´s mission is to call Air France in Maracaibo in order to change the date of my return ticket. We´ll see how that works out.

I was supposed to have a student from 10 to 11.30 but he never showed up. This is a Colombian boy, 8 years old, and I´ve only had one class with him sofar. We have two new English teachers at Ruge, a guy an a girl and they robbed me of two of my nicest students. So no more musicians for me I´m afraid. But in a couple of weeks I´ll be teaching Germn in Ruge. It should be interesting since I´ve never taught German before, except for the Aiesec gang like 5 times in 6 months. We don´t have any materal yet, but I hope Ruge in Caracas will send me something. We are also waiting for our shirts. We are supposedly going to get shirts that we have to buy and then use for work. I´m not excited at all about that. I usually wear a sweater and a scarf and I´m still freezing, so I don´t know how I´ll surive in a shirt, even if I´d put a t-shirt underneath. Fortunately we are in Venezuela so I don´t think the shirts will show up any time soon.

What else...last night I dreamed about Finnish chocolate. I was in a supermarket in Finland with my sister and I looked at the Fazer chocolates and thoght that they are really good. Today I bought a Venezuelan chocolate bar. Not too bad.

2007-01-29T07:46:00.000-08:00

4 min internet time.

Well, if you come to Maracaibo I´ll take you to some gaita bars and museums and maybe a beach and it will be great so you should all come.

last weekend kasia and I facilitated in an Aiesec seminar in Caracas. The seminar was for the venezuelan people who are going to do an Aiesec internship abroad. Now I am totally exhausted but it was interesting and everything. I skipped the party on Sat evening and I´m glad I did cause I´m falling asleep at work.

For the seminar there where two groups: one in Spanish and one in English. There was a group in English because "Elina does not speak Spanish". I felt sooo insulted. Like I´ve been here for 6 months, I have friends I speak only Spanish with and someone says my Spanish is like nothing. I was sooo angry. But oh well, the work at the seminar was a millino times easier for me cause I could speak English. But I´m still angry. One night I had a nightmare about Spanish grammar.

2007-01-18T04:29:00.000-08:00

2007-01-15T07:43:00.000-08:00

My family left this morning. Sigh. Now I´ll tell you a bit more about what we did, so you know where I can take you when you come to visit.

After my aunt and cousin arrived we spent two days in Caracas before going to Maracaibo. I would have wanted to stay longer in Caracas, cause I thought it would be a more interesting place than Maracaibo and that there would be more things to do. So what we did was: On the first day we went to Parque del Este (spelling?), and in the evening we ate in a chinese restaurant, where I used to go for cheep beers with Kasia, Demetrio, and Jeff, when I was living in Caracas. The food was actually really good, so we went back to the same place the day after. The second day we went to Bellas Artes, where there is another park, a museum, and street vendors who sell neckleses, ear rings etc. We visited the museum and bought some souvenirs. In the evening we met up with Demetrio (the guy I met on the plane coming to Caracas almost exactly six months ago), had some beers, and then my cousin Verneri and I went out to a really cool bar with him. Ulla, my sister, wasn´t feeling so well so she stayed at home with my aunt. By the way "home" refers to the place where Kasia and I stayed our first mont (and two months in Kasia´s case) in Caracas. Jeff was kind enough to let us use his room while he was away and Angela (a new Austalian girl who now occupies the room where Kasia and I used to stay) let us use her room.

So, about the bar where we went in the evening - Suka. It is situated in the San Ignacio shopping mall, where I used to work. It´s a really expensive bar but a nice one. They music wasn´t the typical mix of merengue, salsa, and reggaeton, instead they played electronic music and the place was packed. In one conrner there was a big net, kind of like a hammock, and Demtrio told us that the net is from the movie Peter Pan (with Robin Williams), the net from the house of the lost boys. Kind of cool. Another interesting detail (for me at least) was that when we retured to Maracaibo and I told my DJ student about the place he told me that he used to spin records there and thet it is one of the best places in Caracas. Small world.

Then we came to Maracaibo and I´ll have to tell you about what we did here another time cause my internet time is up and I have to get to work.

2007-01-12T07:47:00.000-08:00

Christmas was delicious, new year was fun, and I am still alive. I haevn´t been writing cause I have no internet access at home (for the time being).

The big news is that my sister, aunt, and cousin came to visit. My sister came before new year, so we spent new year together with a bunch of Aiesec people at the a beach (Tucacas) near Caracas. My aunt and cousin arrived on the third. We spent a couple of days in Caracas and then we came here to Maracaibo. It´s great havnig them here. The first morning when I woke up and heard people spekaing Finnish in my apartment I felt really at home in my apartment for the first time.

2006-12-26T16:25:00.000-08:00

Merida was great. We stayed at Kasia's roommate's aunt's (Senora Mirella) house. We hiked in the mountains, took the cable car to the highest peak, ate strawberries with cream (something Merida is famous for) and enjoyed the cool weather and sunshine. Senora Mirella's son was our guide and truly I don't think we could have begun our Christmas holdays better than going to the part of Venezuela which is the least like Mcbo. The city of Merida is similar to European towns, with a center and parks where people gather. It is a very easy city to get around in and we felt secure at all times. There were people in the streets and buses functioned until late in the evening - what luxury. OUr travel group consisted of Kasia and I, the Check guy who is working like us in Mcbo teaching English, and a Turkish guy who is doing an Aiesec internship in Caracas.

After spending one week in Merida we returned to Mcbo in order to celebrate Christmas with Jose's family. Was very nice. Both Kasia and Jose were worried about my Spanish and how I would be able to communicate, which was quite funny since I was not really worried about that. So I decided to convince them of muy ability to communicate sufficiently in Spanish by starting to speak in Spanish with the two. I have been speaking Spanish with them eversince, even though I am a bit tired cause it does require more thinking from my part. So we ate hallacas (I won't even try to describe) and pan de jamon ("bread of ham") and chicken salad. And exchanged gifts and drank tequila.

Now I am at Kasia's. She begged me to come over so she would't have to spend the days after christmaseve alone. To be quite honest I am glad to be here, I wouldn't like to be alone in my apartment either. Both our room mates have gone to their families (mine to Cumana and Kasia's to Caracas) to celebrate Christmas and new year. Tomorrow we leave for Caracas. My sister comes the day after tomorrow to Caracas and we'll meet her at the airport. Then, on Friday we're going to see a baseball game, and on the 31st we're going to Tucacas (a beach) with a bunch of people from Aiesec to welcome the new year.

I had no internet connection at my place so I wasn't able to write to you earlier (ok I could have gone to an internetcafe but...). And because I still don't know where the post office is (I just know that the post from here takes ages to get anywhere) I haven't sent a single christmas card. So, merry christmas everyone. I have not forgotten you (even though I haven't answered your mails) and happy new year in advance. I am pretty sure that I won't go through the trouble of going to an internetcafe in Caracas. Although, we'll be staying in the same place where I spent my first month in Caracas (and Kasia her two first months) and I know that there is an internetcafe nearby. Maybe I'll write you a nostalgic mail from good old Ccs. Hardly likely, I am happy in Mcbo now and haven't been planning to return Ccs for a looong time.

2006-12-15T05:12:00.000-08:00

My Christmas holidays begin today. All our classes (all my two classes) have been cancelled for today and the coordinators have organized a Christmas lunch for us. And tomorrow, at 8 in the morning, Kasia and I are taking the bus to Mérida. Kasia has been planning this trip for ages, it seems, and we are both really excited. Ah, and I think Honza, our Czech trainee (I never mentioned him before I think, he arrived like a month ago), will be there as well.

Mérida is like the most chrismassy place you can find in Venezuela cause it is the coldest. I think it is situated somewhere in the Andes, cause there are mountains with snow even. We´ve already got a reservation for the cable car to go up the mountain. We can´t wait to get out of hot Mcbo and experience some cold weather for a change - cold meaning 15-20. Á propos cold...I have a cold again. So I am planning on taking the max dosis of medicine tomorrow when I´m sitting 12 hours (or something) on the bus to Merida.

We don´t have the return tickets to Maracaibo yet, but we´re planning to return for Christmas. We´ve been invited to (several places, actually) Josés house on the 24th so I guess we´ll return on the 23rd or something. We´ll see. I´ll let you know what happens.

2006-12-10T06:53:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning. My room mate is still sleeping, a cock just crowed (incredible, first time I heard that here, must be an imitation, a tape or somehting, no now it crowed again. There is a rooster somehwere here nearby, I can´t believe it). Well, I´m washing laundry and thinking that this past week has been really quiet, nothing special or exciting has happened that I could write about. No strange encounters, no big parties, no dramatic turns and no new aquintances. So I´ll have to write about my everyday life instead.

The only thing I have planned for today is a German class. I´ve been teaching the Aiesec gang German on Sundays. I think we´ve had about 3 classes sofar, which is not a huge amount considering the fact that I´ve been here almost four months (almost five months in Venezuela), but it is my tiny contribution to Aiesec Maracaibo. And is saves my Sundays, which would probably be pretty boring otherwise.

Originally we were supposed to have German and Spanish on Sundays. That is, first I would teach German and then there would be a Spanish class for all us trainees. But last time we met we decided to change the Spanish class into a conversation on a specific topic. That is, each week there would be a different topic to discuss. A very nice idea but we´ll see how it works in reality. I have no idea what the topic for today is supposed to be.

And yesterday we started a new level in Salsa. We passed Basic one and begun Basic 2. Maybe I should explain that what we are dancing is not traditional salsa but salsa casino. That is we don´t dance in couples...or we do but the couples form a circle. So we dance in a circle and change couples. There is a leader who shouts to everybody what to do and we follow. For example, "arriba!" (up) and then we dance in a certain way, then she shouts "arriba de verdad!" (and we start moving) "abajo!" (down), "abajo de verdad!" etc. It is really a lot of fun.

Gotta go.

2006-12-04T08:16:00.000-08:00

Chavez won. By 61% or something. I have to admit that yesterday when I was watching the counting of the votes with my room mate and her boyfirend I could not help hoping that Rosaes would win. But oh well, life goes on. Like a Venezuelan friend of mine wrote to me (in an sms) last night after the results had been presented on TV: "What the hell, our lives don´t depend on on that". Even though some see more like "Venezuela is going to hell". One of my trainee friends said that this is better for us trainees, things will remain the same and there won´t be any problems.

It wasn´t too bad staying inside yesterday. I read, drew a picture of my red converse trainees, slept, read a shortstory, and watched the elections. There seemed to be some problems with people who wanted to vote after the voting places (there must be a better word for this) had been closed. The places were supposed to close at four, unless there were people outside in line waiting. By the way, here people stand in line for hours to vote. When I turned on the TV at 6 p.m. it seemed that some places closed the doors even if there were people in line outside, waiting to vote. And very soon after the doors were closed, the people supporting Rosales were requesting to count the votes themselves - foreseeing that Chavez would win or that there would be some shenanigans with the counting of the votes.

Today I woke up and listened to the sounds coming from the street below. Everything sounded normal. I turned on the light in order to see whether we have electricity or not and went to the bathroom to see if we have running water. Everything worked. I talked to some friends in Caracas on msn and they went to work today as usual cause everything was calm. I´ll stay inside today just in case and casue I have promised to do so (also, I haven´t received any invitations to go out). Tomorrow I´m going to work - like planned.

Now I´m gonna go and check out the Finnish newspapers to see how they´ve written about the elections.

2006-12-03T07:07:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning and I´m stuck. I´ve promised to stay inside my apartment all day today and tomorrow, in case there is trouble because of the elections. I don´t really like the idea of spending two whole days inside but I´ll survive.

Some people have adiveced me and Kasia to buy dry food and water for storage, in case there is a strike or other trouble so that we have to stay inside or shops will be closed. So yesterday I bought tuna, rice, crackers, and water - just in case. Others have said that they are not going ot prepare for trouble, that there is going to be so much military around that there won´t be any trouble.

So I'll spend the whole day reading. Does not sound too bad does it. And in the evening I´ll probably watch with my room mate and her boyfriend the counting of the votes. This election is supposed to be really crucial for the future of Venezuela. If Chavez wins Venezuela will follow Cuba and become a closed country (this is what some people say) and if Rosales wins Venezuela can start to follow western models of free economy and so on. This is my subjective simplification of the situation. Thank god I don´t have to vote.

2006-12-01T10:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to a... how should I put it. I was invited to the opening of a building: There is a womens' magazine here, Tendencia, which is moving office to a brand new building. Yesterday was the opening and I got an invitation there by Carlos, one of my musician students. His band, Skama Sweet Selection, was going to play there so he could invite some people.

Before going to the Tendencia thing José and I went to have some beers with our Aiesec friends (my student was kind enough to give invitations for me, José, and Kasia). I told one of the guys that we were going to the opening of the new Tendecia building. He looked at me and said: "You´re going dressed like that?" and shook his head. He said, "I´ve beent o two press parties and let me tell you, the people there are dressed really well." I said to him, well, I don´t know anybody there so I don´t care (or something like that). José was dressed even more casual than I so when we passed some people in the street who were obviously going to the opening he said to me: I´m not going in there dressed like this. In the end, after hearing from everybody that the party would be packed with stuck up snobbish people etc. I was not sure either that I really wanted to go. I kept repeating: "We can go there and check it out and leave any time we want." And "I just want to hear the band". Well, anyways we went in and were not the only ones dressed casually. Sure, most of the people there were dressed like they expected to appear on the fashion pages of next months issue of Tendencia, but I could not have cared less. I was there to listen to the band. ...And have my share of free food and drinks.

So, we hung out for an hour or so waiting for the band to start to play. I said hi to the members of the band I knew (the singer was on the cover of the latest issue of the magazine) and we even bumped into some people we knew. At some point, as I mentioned that all cover girls are supposedly at the party, José called a friend of his who was a covergirl recently and was really happy to find out that she was there as well. Small world.

The band played and it was a good gig, but it wasn´t easy for the band cause the guests were not exactly the kind of people who normally listen to Skama Sweet Selection. After the gig we hung out for a while listening to Carlos spinning and then we left. I think this evening was a "once in a lifetime" experience. I will not forget Kasia anytime soon for not coming with us.

2006-11-29T13:19:00.000-08:00

Today I wore a blue t-shirt to work. I didn´t think about the significance of blue until I stepped out. Blue is for Rosales (Manuel Rosales, the governor of Zulia state, the presidental candidate challenging Chavez) and red is for Chavez. But I hoped that the fact that I was wearing red shoes and carrying a red backpack would kind of balance my bright blue t-shirt. Well, then I arrived to work and found out that at 3.00 there would be a demonstration for Rosales on the street right next to where Ruge is situated. I got more and more conscious of my blue shirt and was relieved to be able to pull a sweater over it - because of the airconditioning - at work. It didn´t even occur to me to wear a sweater outside, I would probably have gotten a heat stroke or something if I had done that.

Two of my three classes were cancelled, because the demo was bound to confuse the traffic near Ruge all afternoon, so I got to go home early. But I had a class util 4. As Kasia and I were waiting for our students (I teach the son, she the mother) we watched Rosales´ supportes gather with flags, whistles etc. most of them wearing blue t-shirts. After my class I stepped outside and started my walk home. There were no buses because of the demonstration. I tried to look like someone who is totally unaware of what she is wearing, but was prepared for comments from passersby. I got no comments. Not even when I passed a group of Chavistas (=Chavez supporteds) all wearing red t-shirts and I heard them shouting at Rosales´supporeters passing by. Of course, luckily for me, it says "Atreveté" on most Rosales´supporteds t-shirts, whereas the Chavistas´t-shirts are pure red (as far as I can tell). "Atreveté" means something like "dare" or "have the courage". I got home safe and sound and decided that I can wear neither my blue nor my red t-shirt for a while.

There is a worker at the supermarket I go to who always salutes me. He salutes me cause happened to be present when I had a misunderstanding with a cassier: When you pay with a card (credit or debit) you need to present you social security number, or in my case my passport number. The social security number in Spanish (or actually I don´t know what number it is, I think it must be some kind of social security number) is called "cedula". But, often the cassiers also ask you for your mobile number, for tax reasons, which is called "cellular". So, the cassier was asking for my cedula number and I kept giving him my cellular number. Well, eventually I understood what he wanted, but now there is this smartass worker who always salutes me with "cedula!". So, the cedula guy told me yesterday that I need to get a Venezuelan cedula so that I can vote for Chavez. I juts smiled and said, "I am foreign I can not vote here".

On Sunday we went to a mall (the special thing with this mall is that there is a skating rink there) and as we were going home by car (Kasia, two coordinators from work, and I) we were stuck in a traffic light. Or we could not drive because the cars coming in our direction juts ignored the lights (happens here all the time) and would not let us cross. I don´t really know what triggered it, but all of the sudden the two coordinators, who were sitting in the front, started yelling : Chaviosta, Chavista! to the men in a car passing by. The coordinators recognized the men as Chavistas casue they had Chavez stickers on the car. Kasia and I laughed in the backseat with tears in our eyes. It was juts so incredible, these two women, very well dressed and always acting proper and everything, going off like that screaming like crazy.

Yesterday I had a class with two teenage girls. A guy with a red t-shirt passed by the window and the girls started yelling: Chavista! Chavista!. Then they asked me if I was going to vote and I explained that I can´t vote here cause I´m not a Venezuelan citizen. The girls were eager to explain that they are all for Rosales and one of them gut up and wanted to write something on the white board. I gave her the marker, but as soon as I saw that she was writing a capital A I said; no politics in this room, and took the marker out of her hand. "I just wanted to write A3VT" (=Atreveté), the girl said. "No politics in this room", I said and imagined what a Chavista student passing by would think if s/he saw A3VT written on my board.

One last example of election fever in Venezuela: several people on my msn are presenting themselves are supporteds of Rosales. They write things such as A3VT on their signatures (or whatever they´re called, I am totally ignorant concerning this vocabulary) or AZUL AZULITO ("blue blue" or very blue, vrs. rojo rojito which means "red red" or very red). Sofar I have no one on my msn who openly declares being a Chavista, but I have some friends who I know are Chavistas. I haven´t discussed politics with them. I try to be as diplomatic as possible. I also have some friends who want to vote blank or who don´t want to vote al all. As far as I have understood the people who are backing Rosales do not all think that he is a wonderful candidate, but many are going to vote for him just becasue he is the strongest candidate against Chavez. I´ve heard negative things about Chavez as well as the opposition, but basically I am very uninformed about the political situation here.

Have a look at the link Emily gave in the comments of my last entry!

2006-11-25T18:42:00.000-08:00

I don't have a lot of time. The internet connection is not working at my place right now so I haven't been able to write for a while. Right now I'm visiting Kasia and taking advantage of her internet.

I went back to work on Wednesday. I feel still a bit out of sync, its a funny feeling to have been lying in bed for one week doing nothing and then being back to work. I can't drink alcohol for 15 days, which should not be too hard to accomplish, and take it easy in general.

Friday I was on the radio in Marcaibo. One of my students, who works in the radio invited me. I said something in Spanish about the weather being hot and blablabla and everything I said went probably somehow wrong but it was kind of cool.

Nothing too much happening right now, we're mostly planning our Christmas holidays.

I'll write more when I get the opportunity.

2006-11-18T11:48:00.000-08:00

Just to let you know: I've been down with dengue for a week now. That's why I haven't been writing too much lately.

Dengue is a disease transmited by mosquitoes.
I got ill on Sunday. First I thought it is a normal hangover but then I realized that I have fever and when I had a fever of 39 I got a bit worried and went to see a doctor. And then I had a fever for some more days and went to see another doctor and blood test were taken etc and he diagnosed the dengue.

I'm doing much better now. The fever is gone and so is the itchy rash that kept me from sleeping well. Now I just have to rest. I am staying at Kasia's and she is taking good care of me. Something like this was bound to happen.

2006-11-10T15:39:00.000-08:00

One of these days someone mentioned again that Venezuela is a third world country. Well, I have to admit that I have seen just such a small part of it that most of the time time I am totally ignorant to the fact. I mean, what is the definition of a third world country? Poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, corruption...what else. Well, the fact of the matter is that I meet only more or less well off people. I hardly see any of the poverty. The people I hang out with are all well educated and (surprisingly) many speak excellent English. There are not too many beggars in the streets and the criminalty that people keep talking about has not presented its ugly face sofar. Don´t get me wrong. I know that the criminalty exists and poverty and illiteracy etc. but I really am not confronted with this reality every day. It is not like I have to pass begging children in the streets or close my eyes from the misery around. Sometimes I feel bad about the fact that I know so little about the reality here. But there is no way that I could just go and venture out in the neigborhood and start talking to the people in the street.

During the Aiesec seminar in Caracas I took part in a discussion on why Venezuela, with all its oil and natural resources, is a third world country. Some think the reason is in the culture, or the mentality of the masses. Venezuela is a country where you don't have to fight for survu¡val. It is warm and there is enough food and space for everybody, I´ve been told. This is why people simply don't feel the need to be ambitious, to look for ways of improving their lives.

I can't help but remember reading what would happen the global ecology if everybody would own a car etc. In some ways I think that it is impossible for everybody to have the standars of living that we have in the so called western world. But then again, here I live very much in the same fashion as I have lived in Europe and in the States. My standard of living is on the same level as it has always been. So what am I learning about living in third world country? Well, sofar I have learned that it is possible to maintain a good standard of life here and to function more or less normally. But then again, I haven't been confronted with any of the criminalty or corruption and I know that many people are frustrated about that.

So, little by little I am creating my picture of what Venezuela is. Some days I feel at home, some days I feel that I know so very little about my surroundings. Some days I feel happy here and some days I feel frustrated cause I still haven't figured out the culture and I still have false expectations. And the I am disappointed when things don´t work out the way I have expected. And I blame myself cause I should understand by now that it is impossible to plan anything here and one has to be prepared for anything etc. As foreigner - as someone who still does not understand the logic of the Venezuelan way of life. Basta.

2006-11-06T17:22:00.000-08:00

I had a roach situation in my room yesterday. I really do hate those creatures. Well, when I noticed the roach running on the floor I calmly sprinted to the kitchen to get the poisonspray to kill it. I went back to my room and started the hunt. The roach tried to hide in the piles of clopthing etc. that I had left on the floor (and will try never to leave again) and in the end it sprinted to my bed. I was disgusted. It started to climb the wall behind the bed and I was there with my spray. Then it jumped on my bed. And that is when things got really disgusting. I had to take out all my bedlinen and I kept hoping that it would turn out and at the same time I was extremely disgusted. Finally I found a dead roach under my ..bedlinen? (what is the least layer called?) and had to go and get some newespapers to get it out of there. I hope and pray that it was the same roach and that I haven´t been sleeping on a disgusting dead roach for a long time. I did not sleep very well last night cause I kept thinknig about how many eggs there must be in the bed now and what will happen when the eggs are ready and the new baibes will hatch. Yuk.

2006-11-05T12:55:00.000-08:00

I know that I should not be writing this, cause my Mom will be worried, but there is nothing else going on so I will risk it: One day last week, it was the day of the demonstration, I was taking the bus home during my lunchbrake. Well, at some point I noticed that I didn´t recognize the street we were on. I had missed my stop. It is also possible that the bus changed the route since there had been the demonstration - I don´t know. All I know is that I was somewhere I was not supposed to be. So I jumped off. I asked an old harmless looking man in the street for directions, mainly, where is Bella Vista, one of the main avenues. The man pointed me in the right direction and I started walking with a(n attempt of a) determined "don´t even try speaking to me" look on my face. Then, a woman started shouting and gesturing at me. I gestured back: "I don´t know" and continued walking. In a few minutes a car driove by. The old man and the woman were in the car and they gestured for me to come to their car. I had to make a decision: which is more dangerous, walking around in a strange neighborhood or taking a ride with those old people. I mean, I trusted the man enough to ask for directions and follow them, I might as well take a ride with him. So, I got into the car and the couple told me that they´d be happy to give me a ride to Bella Vista. They were very seweet but I sat the whole ride with my hand on the doorknob (or whatever it´s called) prepared ot jump out if things turn suspicious. They said that this is a dangerous neighbourhgood for a foreigner to be walking around in and I tried to explain that the bus changed its route etc. When we came to a street I recognized I tried to tell them to stop, but couldn´t remember the word "stop" in Spanish. Luckily the man was French (they told me) so I told him in French: Arretez s'il vous plait (please stop!) and they stopped and I got out saying thank you, thank you so much, thank you thank you. And walking home I thought again what amazing people there are here in Maracaibo, helping a total stranger like that.

On Saturday the Cristmas lights were turned on on Bella Vista. This means that the traffic on Bella Vista will be crazy until the end of December. Wonderful. Well, the same evening (Saturday) I was supposed to go with Kasia to Massive Halloween, a party of elecric music in the waterpark here in Maracaibo. Enrique, who is an English teacher at Ruge, is a DJ and he was going to play there and he had been talking to us about this event for weeks. Also my students (the DJ´s) where going and insisted that I ditch my Aiesec friends for one single evening and go to the party with them. Well, I promised to do my best to try to be there. My students warned me that the traffic would be crazy on Saturday and that I should get there early. Well, more easily said than done.

First of all, I was supposed to go to the illumination (turning on the X-mas lights). I could not get a ride there and tried to organize going together with a girl who lives near by. She told me to come over to her house at 8. I tried to tell her that I have no idea where she lives but she thought it should be very easy to get to her place. She talked about a gas station (I have never seen) and stuff like that. I decided that going with her would be the last thing on my list of desperate moves. So, I waited and hoped. In the end Cheché turned out to be the rescuing angel and said he´d (try to) go with me to Massive Halloween. We decided to skip the illumiation and aim for the free beer that was on offer from 9 to 11 p.m. However, because of the traffic gone crazy we arrived on the site at ca 11 and then we stood in line to enter for an hour or so. At the entrance they naturally asked everybody for their ID, which I had forgotten at home (how blonde can you get). However, I kept my cool and said to the bouncer (or guard or whoever): "look, I only have my Finnihs ID", and handed over my ISIC student card. The bouncer was nice enough to let me in. There were three different sites with changing DJ´s. I managed to find all three people I was supposed to in the crowd and hear Enrique spinning (not bad at all, I might add). At ca 2 we left and I was content.

I guess I might mention, cause several people have asked me about this, that there is a boyfriend figure around. I´m taking one day at a time and we´ll see what happens. So no need for anyone to be jumping into any conclusions (doesn´t sound right, does it? jump to conclusions?). Any tips on dating in South America are more than welcome, although I like to believe that this guy is not a tyical Latino (although he looks like one, god bless). For those of you unaware, Latinos are known cheaters and sweet talkers. But the stereotypes about Nordic women are not 100% flattering either (not to mention blondes) so I think we´re even.

2006-11-02T09:45:00.000-08:00

Today there was a demonstration in Maracaibo. As I was finishing my morning class and was about to go home to have lunch I noticed that there would't be any buses for a while cause the street was blocked by a demonstration. The demonstration was for Manuel Rosales (I hope I got the name right this time), who is the governor here and also a presidental candidate.

I've heard that demonstrations here in Venezuela can be pretty scary, but this one was peaceful. My student, who was also stranded at Ruge, said that this is the worst that will happen even if Chavez wins the elections. Some people will have a demonstration but it is not like people are going to get aggressive or anything. Let's hope he is right.

2006-10-27T16:02:00.000-07:00

Once again it proved useless to make plans in Venezuela. If there is no one else to fuck them up I'm quite capable of ruining them myself. On Friday it was my birthday and I was unable to celebrate it the way I had planned. The day of my birthday my cold got worse, I had a fever, and I decided not to go to work. By the way, it´s suprisingly hard to know how one is feeling in a foriegn country. For example, in Finland I would very easily be able to tell if I am sweating more than usually but here it is bloody hot all the time (especially with no airconditioning) so there is no way of telling whether I´m sweating more than usual or not. But the morning of my birhtday I felt a bit cold and weak and in the night I had started to cough. I remeber saying to my flatmate on the Monday before that I don´t feel too well and that perhaps I should stay at home. She said, if you can talk you can work - tough people, the Venezuelans. So, the morning of my b-day I was talking to myself, trying to check wether I have a voice or not. I had a voice but decided that this voice theory does not really apply to Finnish people and called work and said that I´m staying at home.

"I´m staying at home" was the phrase I kept repeating throughout the day over and over, when people called to congratualte and asked where we´d be having the party later in the evening. Well, what happened was that Kasia showed up at my place 6 p.m. with Chuy, a guy from Aiesec. And then Nancy came with a cake and then Cheché and then some more people and in the end there were enough people there to eat most of the huge cake that Nancy brought. Kasia brought a bottle of wine and we discussed the fact that here people drink wine cold instead of room temperature, cause it is so hot here. Actually it was the perfect way for me to celebrate my b-day. I could not have imagined anything better than to have my Aiesec family around me. Kasia was disappointed cause I didn't cry, like I did during the Aiesec seminar, but I promised to cry at the latest on the day we leave Venezuela.

I have to tell you about one super cute thing that happened to me at work. One student of mine, Ramón (12 years old), came to his class on Monday with a ridiculously big bouquet of flowers and a cake for me. The frosting on the cake was like a Finnish flag, white with a blue cross. Kasia was yelling in the next room "cry baby cry", and Ramón's mother was taking pictures. I loved my work that day.

2006-10-26T18:11:00.000-07:00

My last entry was pretty useless, so I´ll try to write something more interesting today.

There is an indigenous population living here in Maracaibo - the Guajiros. (In the song about Cuantanamera they sing about Guajiro Cuantanamera). They have their own language and culture and live between Maracaibo and Colombia and in Colmobia. They are respected, or I've heard that it can turn ugly if you mess with the Guajiros, but they tend to be doing the low paid jobs around. Our cleaning lady, for example, is Guajiro. Their craftmaniship is highly valued, they make beautiful hammocks amongst other things, and I heard that they own land and are therefore somewhat powerful. However, the Guajiro area is the poorest in Venezuela, as far as I know. An interesting detail about the Guajiro culture is that it is the women who make the big decicions in the family, like whom the son/daughter is going to marry etc.

Maybe I'll attempt to address the higly sensitive topic of politics more thoroughly some day, but to all those unaware, there will be elections in December (13.12 I think). Basically there are two camps: those for and those against Chavez. I guess the biggest cadidate against Chavez is the governor of Zulia (Arturo Morales or something, I´m ashamed to admit that I don't know his name). Maracaibo is situated in Zulia so seems like Maracaibo might have a big role in the elections. People have said that this is the last chance to get Chavez out of power before he turn Venezuela into a communist country. Sofar no one I´ve heard has been indifferent to the topic and for sure emotions will be heated when december approaches.

Well, I better go and try to get some sleep. My landlord is redoing her bathroom so I´ll have to be prepared to the arrival of workers (and no running water) tomorrow morning. So I have to wake up early to shower and probably I´ll go straight to work instead of hanging arund the house and listen to the process off tiles being removed from the wall. In addition, as if I would not feel miserable enough with my cold, the airconditioning in my room decided to brake down. Well, I know that I´m not supposed to be sleeping with the airconditioning on but there are some nasty insects (small mosquitos) which didn't like the air condidtioning and are now settling in my room. I´ll never say that I hate airconditioning again.

2006-10-24T18:32:00.000-07:00

Progress! I started with Spanish classes (which we get for free at Ruge) AND (finally!!) salsa classes. And now I have a cold. Actually it´s been a miracle that I haven´t fotten sick earlier considering the amount of sleep I´ve been having these past couple of weeks. Well, anyways I think I´m not sick enough to skip work. Actually I think that I got my cold from a student of mine. On Friday Valeria came to class very ill. She sat there the whole class shivering and I thought her parents must be punishing her for something cause I don´t see why anybody would send their child to class in that condition.

I´m trying to plan my B-day and at the same time be prepared for anything. I´ll let you know if anythig worth mentioning happens.What else... no time.

2006-10-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we had an Aiesec seminar. It was for all new members who want to become full mebers. I wasn´t really aware of the agenda but I wanted to participate cause I felt it would be good for my integration process in Aiesec Venezuela.

We left on Friday evening at 8. We took a bus from Maracaibo to Caracas. We arrived in Caracas at ca 8 in the morning. It was nice to be in Caracas again, see familiar places and streets. Of course I hoped that I might bump into someone I know but in a city with 8 million inhabitants (0r something) the dds are not really high. The seminar took place in a monastery outside of Caracas. The site was really nice, peaceful and everything. I had my own room with shower and it felt pretty luxurious.

The theme of the seminar was leadership. There were discussions, presentations, and activites that dealt with topics ranging from time management to third world problems. Everything was in Spanish, which made life sometimes a bit difficult for me. On Sunday I decided to just concentrate on understanding and forget about participating. I begun to wonder if one of my problems in France/Disneyland was that I was to hard on myslef. This weekend was really tiring and at some point I decided to put minimum effort into everything. I spoke English even if I could have tried to speak Spanish etc. I was silent even if I could have made an effrot to participate. I felt pretty good about being able to cut myslef some slack without feeling bad about it.

On the whole the weekend was a bit extreme. For example the first night we had a meeting with Aiesec Maracaibo and the people were saying such nice things about me that I started to cry. Everybody was supposed to thank everybody and when it was my turn to thank the people who had helped me most I started to cry. To me it is just so incredible how the pople here have adopted me. I still can not understand it. And at the same time it is really frustratgin to try ot be social in surroundings where you don´t really understadn what pople are saying and you feel like you are not realy yourself. At least that is how I feel sometimes. I´m sure that if the seminar would have taken place in Finland or i an English speaking country I would have been much more active in the group activities. At least I like to think that way.

Well, I just had a conversation with Rocio. She called me to invite me to her graduation ceremony. Seems like I´m heading for another adventure. We have to meet early tomorrow morning so she can show me how to get to the place where th graduation is taking place. Why does everythig have to be so fucking complicated. I´m exhasuted and should be getting to bed. The last time I had a decent night sleep was probably like two weeks ago or somehting.

2006-10-09T17:51:00.000-07:00

Well. Now I really feel like I am working, cause I am at Ruge Monday-Thursday from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening. Fortunately I have some free hours between classes. Sofar I like being busy at work, cause my students are really nice and teaching could not be made easier or more pleasant. However, the downside is that I have to take taxis home in the evening, which naturally costs more than walking, since there are no buses. Also, because I can´t walk home it means that I'm moving even less than before, which means that I'll have to find another way to exercise. Already in Finland I remember thinking that I should learn yoga or some other sport (...if yoga can be called a sport) that I could do anywhere and which would require a minimum amount of equipment and space.

Last Friday I went to a salsa party. Sometime in the afternoon I got an SMS from Rocio saying: "Rumba hoy?" which menas something like, "wanna go out tonight?" and I replied: sure, but tomorrrow I work at 10 so I can´t stay out too late. Well, later in the evening Rocio called me and said that she´d like us to go to a salsa party organized by salsa casino, the place where she takes salsa classes (and where I was supposed to start classes like a month ago). Rocio thought that the party would take place in a bar (or club or somehting) where anybody could go, so it was a bit weird when our taxi stopped in front of a private home. Well, we weren't discouraged (or to tell you the truth, I was but Rocio wasn´t) so we rang the doorbell and someone came to answer. The guy was weraing normal clothes and Rocio asked him: is the salsa party taking place here? Yes, said the guy. We enter and realize that we're crashing a private birthday party. It was extremely embarrasing and awkward. I wanted to leave immediately, especially since I knew that some people were meeting at Pedro's for beers. But Rocio wanted to wait a bit in order to see whether any of her firends from salsa casino would show up.

I tried to make myself as invisible as possible, but the always friendly and not at all shy Maracuchos (=people from Maracaiobo) came to talk to me. And soon I was dancing salsa (or receiving a lesson of salsa) and having a blast. Rocio and I were amongst the last to leave, and I was at my house at 4.30 in the morning. Another night of success in Maracaibo.

And on Saturday one of my musicians was spinning records at an art fair. Cheche was kind enough to take all us trainees there. At the exibition we saw some arsty people, and I think they would be more or less like my sister´s crowd in Finland. So I felt kind of at home. Carlos played house and I kept repeating "THIS is the kind of music my sister and I look for in Finland when we want to go out to dance". What I really like about Venezuela is the diversity in the music you can find here. You have the traditional stuff like salsa, merenge, and vallenato, which you dance with a partner. Then you have the reggaeton, which you dance at parties and which is also kind of a social dance since nobudy dances reggaeton by themselves. But then you can also find good house, reggae and funk where you don't have to worry about what the other people on the dance floor are doing and you can really just do your own thing.

I´m slowly beginning to plan my birthday. Today my musicians complained to me that I don´t go out with them and promised to come and spin records at my birthday party (wherever it takes place). Carlos Enrique could spin house and John promised to play salsa. We´ll see what happens. It would be so extremely awesome.

2006-10-03T11:10:00.000-07:00

I´ve been busy. Last weekend we had an Aiesec seminar here in Maracaibo and on top of that I went to a concert and to Pedro´s birthday party. So I guess Saturday was the busiest day.

My last entry was kind of depressed, I suppose, or not very positive to say the least. I complained about my poor Spanish etc. Well, last weekend I noticed how my Spanish has improved. We have Aiesec activities every Saturday and I understand more and more every weekend. This last weekend I was actually participating in the seminar, in Spanish, commenting etc. It was a pretty good feeling.

The concert I went to was one where two of my students, John and Carlos Enrique played. They had a gig already the weekend before the last but I was unable to go there (or it was simply too difficult to arrange) so I was determined to go this time. And my students insisted. The concert was for new bands, so I was prepared for anything. However, the concert was surprisingly good and I liked the astmosphere and the people I saw there a lot. You know this music scene where people dress a bit altrenative etc. When I saw John at the concert he said: Hey, Elina, now you can see people who wear shoes like you! In other words, the girls there, or many of them, were wearing trainers. I had been telling John and Carlos earlier that I feel a bit unfeminine walking around in my trainers and wearing whatever. So, back to the music, the bands were actually not bad at all. I did not hear all the bands, but the best guitarist in Maracaibo (or was is Venezuela, even) played there. My students played in the closing band (I am proud to announce) and they were naturally the best. I am really bad at describing music, but it was kind of reggae mixed with...I don´t know. It was not rock or jazz or anything like that. Kind of new style, very cool and relaxed. Jamming music. The name of their band is Skama Sweet Selection and they are releasing a recods sometime soon, hopefully next month.

It is pretty amazing, the kind of people I teach at Ruge. Another student of mine, a Colomiban guy, whom I think I´ve mentioned in passing in a previous entry, is actually related to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. How amazing is that! And he also plays in a band with his brothers. They have released five records of typical Colombian music called vaienato (spelling?).

What else...one day I heard a person speaking English in the bakery where I sometimes buy my lunch. I walked in and heard a loud voice speaking English and everybody was staring in his direction. I ordered my sandwich (or whatever) and kept an eye on the guy. He was trying to communicate (or communicating in a very basic way) with the shopkeeper, explaining something about his travels. Well, when I went to pay for my lunch the shopkeeper said, here is another English speaker (they know me at this bakery, it´s the one where the man knew Mika Häkkinen), you can talk with this guy.

guy: hey you speak English
me: yes, I´m an English teacher
guy: where are you from, Germany?
me: no, Finland
guy: where is that?
me: northern Europe
guy: so, do you have a Venezuelan boyfriend
me: yes I do
guy: are you in love?
me: love is a big word
guy: I don´t believe in love, can I have your phone number?
me: no, I´ll see you around.

2006-09-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

This is it. The first phase of fun and excitement has passed and I´m beginning to realize how badly integrated I am and how little I know about my surroundings.

I was surprised by how easy it was to live in Caracas, depite its bad reputation. Of course I was aware of the fact that I did not "fit in", that is I felt that everybody who sees me in the street must know that I´m a foreigner. But somehow I it was not as difficult as I had imagined to lead a normal life, go to work, meet with friends, go shopping etc. So it is not as difficult to survive in this country as I had imagined. Positive surprises everywhere: the people in the steet were very helpful, I met some people I felt comfortable with, I liked the city and the variety in it. I knew people from Aiesec, from work, I had wonderful housemates, the finnish girls form the embassy etc.

Then I came to Marcaibo. Again, I was positively surprised. I was prepared for an unbarable heat, deserted streets, rude people etc. Instead I found that the heat can be lived with, there are people in the streets and sofar nobody has been rude to me. I learned where I can go grocery shopping, how to take the bus to work, I got to know many wonderful people and have experienced some excellent parties and nights out.

The reality strikes. My Spanish is insifficient to communicate anything beyond the very basic. My understanding of Spanish is insufficient to understand what other people want from me. In the language knowledge is included, naturally, also the nonverbal communication; all the touching, kissing etc. which I sometimes find difficult to interpret. Of course, these are not straight forward things in any language or culture, and some people are better communicators than others, but I do feel a bit lost in what I am communicating and what is being communicated to me. Sometimes.

One day, I think this was during my first week in Maracaibo, we went looking for an appartment with some people from Aiesec. I remember that one guy asked repeatedly where the closest farmacy (specifically Farmatodo) was situated. I didn´t want to ask why the farmacy was so imprtant for him, but I thought it was a bit peculiar. Today it all dawned to me. I went (all by myslef, I´m pround to announce) to the bank and asked for a debit card (to withdraw cash from a cashdispenser). I got it and asked where I can withdraw money: at Farmatodo. OK, I guess they guy wasn´t so strange after all. On my way home for lunch I scanned the streets for a farmatodo. No farmatodo. I need to ask the girls when I return to work.

2006-09-22T13:05:00.000-07:00

The coordinator came to work late this morning, so I had to sit outsde for ca 30 min waiting to get into the Idiomas Ruge office. It´s quite nice to sit there and watch people. The difficlut thing is that in the street there is always the risk that people came and talk to you.

The first person who approached me was an old man. He came up to me, offered his hand as if to greet and asked if I speak any Spanish. I did not shake his hand and gestured that my Spanish is minuscule. I was trying to avoid a conversation. Well, I was stupified when the man started to speak to me in English. His Englihs was not very good, proabably the level of my Spanish, but nonetheless he was speaking English. I looked at his clothes and realized that the man probably wasn´t a beggar. He asked me the usual questions: where are you from, how old are you, and are you married. Then he compliented me on my beautiful eyes, wished me a good day, we shook hands, and he took off. I was amazed.

Ten minutes pass and an old woman approaches me. This time I was right, she came to ask me for money even though she was not badly dressed. Also the old woman starts by asking whether I speak any Spanish. Again, I gesture "very little" and hope she´ll go away. But, to my amazement, the woman starts speaking English to me. Again, her English isn´t very good but she can make herself understood. She explaines that she has cancer or has had an operation for cancer or something and needs money to buy medicine. I tell her that I only carry enough money to take the bus. She starts asking me about how long I have been in Venezuela, what I do, where I´m from etc. Then she explains that everybody on the steet knows her, in other words that she is not a thief, and wishes me a nice day. When my students arrive (the musicians) I tell them about what happened to me when I was waiting for the coordinator and they are amazed. These things happen only to foreigners, I guess.

Kasia has her own place now, she moved in yesterday. I haven´t seen it yet, but as far as I know it is similar to mine, that is she rents one room in some student girl´s apartment. Kasia is all happy and excited about it, although there is no air conditioning in the room. What I really wanted to say about Kasia´s place is that she has to open the door to the house with a credit card. I don´t know exactly why, maybe the landlady does not have a key for her yet so she has to pick the lock every time she wants to enter the house. So, yesterday evening we stood outside of Kasia´s buliding at maybe 3 in the morning picking the lock with a credit card. It was surreal.

2006-09-19T15:16:00.000-07:00

Kasia came on Saturday, early in the morning. The welcoming comittee consisted of four Aiesecers: Daniel, Cheche, Jesus, and myself. It was great to see Kasia and she was happy to be in Maracaibo. We had pancakes for breakfast in a restaurant where the interior is supposedly German influenced (I would not have noticed). It was the same restaurant where I was taken the morning I arrived in Maracaibo.

Kasia had the good fortune of arriving to Maracaibo on a special day. The new Aiesecers were organizing a day of activites for the old Aiesecers. The newies asked if I could do something Finnish for the party. I promised to teach them some Finnish drinking songs. In this way I was kind of recruited to the team of newies an I attended the two planning meetings and I was made resposible for decorating the party venue. The theme of the day was "Superheroes" and everybody was supposed to dress up in a superheroe constume. The day was to start at Aquamania, a waterpark, where we were supposed to play games and have fun out in the open. Then, at 6 we were supposed to meet at Daniel´s place to play some drinking games.

This is what actually happened. After welcoming Kasia and eating breakfast we went to Ruge to get Kasia´s schedule etc., and then we drove to Daniel´s place. We had planned to meet at Daniel´s at 10, but we arrived at ca 11. We were the first ones to arrive. We sat around and waited for the rest of the decorating crew, which arrived at ca 12. Sandra informed us that Aquamania is closed, because one of the lifeguards was killed by a lightning the day before. People started making phone calls trying to organize a diffrent venue for the swimming and games-part of the day, but somehow there was no other place (all the discussions were in Spanish so I didn´t get all the details) so we cancelled the swimming. So, instead we were to meet at Daniel´s at five for the drinking games. At 4.45 I tried to call Cheche. He didn´t answer and was obviously sleeping (I was supposed to get a ride with him). Well, I didn´t really mind being a couple of hours late for the party, and figured that maybe the plans changed again an maybe there is no party after all. Many people had called earlied to inform that they couldn´t attend the party. So I waited for a couple of hours until I found Albert on msn and asked him what was happening. He had tried to contact the people at Daniel´s and failed, so we decided to go there and see what the -beep- was going on. I called Cheche and woke him up. He wanted to come with us. And then we waited for two hours until Alberth and Cheche decided whose car we were going to take and where we could park. Apparently there was no place in the garage in Daniel´s building and Cheche (eventually we ended up taking his car) didn´t want to leave his car out in the street. A lot of cars get stolen here. So at maybe 9 we arrived at the pary. People were drunk. In the Finnish definition of drunk. I found out that they had started drinking at five. Well, there were till some beers, and rum, and coke and drinking games left for us to enjoy. Without getting into too much detail I am proud to report that any Finnish person who comes to Maracaibo after me will have my reputation to live up to.

I was also very touched when Kasia told me that she can see that I am very well integrated in Maracaibo. According to her I am "the center of attention". Obviously I was flattered and walked around with a stupid smile on my face for two days. But it is true that I feel very comfortable with the Aiesecers and am probably therefore more confident. I hate to seem repetitious, but I have to admit, once again, that the people here are really something else. They are taking very good care of me and I am happy to notice that they like me as much as I like them.

2006-09-15T09:37:00.000-07:00

I had a small adventure yesterday. A friend, Rocio from Peru, asked if I wanted to go to the movies with her.

The dialogue went something like this (by sms):

- Movies? tonight?
- Sure when, where and how?
- Sambil at 7.30.*
- How can I get to Sambil? Can we not meet somewhere and go togehter?
- You can take 5 de Julio to delicias tostados 25 6.30

At this point I took out my map and found a street called Avenida 15 de Delicias. Here all streets have a number and some also have names. So, what the hell was tostados 25? I found no street like that. I wrote Rocio:

- So, we meet at the corner of 5 de Julio and Delicias?
- there is a restaurant called tostados 25, we meet there. It is safer than in the street.

Fine. Some time after 6 I went out into the street, took a carrito to 5 de Julio and stood in line to take another carrito to Delicias. A lot of people, no free carritos. At 6.40 I get an SMS from Rocio asking where I am. I answer that I´ll take a carrito or a taxi if I can get one, and start walking. All carritos that pass me are full, or pirate, and I can´t make out whether the taxis are pirate or not and do not want to take a risk. But it is getting dark. Soon Rocio calls, where are you? I inform her that I just crossed 12 (the street, Delicias is 15). She tells me to, instead of Delicias, go to a shopping center called Kapital. I ask her to wait for me at street 15, she says Kapital is easy to find. OK, I continue walking. When I come to street 16 I ask some people in the street where Kapital is situated. First person says, what kapital, Caracas? and helps me ask another person who knows the shopping center. He says it is very far away, but that I just have to keep walking straight. I am cursing Rocio and it is getting dark. I get funny looks from the men in the street. I ask for directions again, and everybody says "walk straight, it´ll com up in your right". I finally find the place at ca 7.30 and walk into the supermarket called Kapital. No Rocio. I walk around the shopping center and look for her. No Rocio, it is dark. The battery on my mobile fails me. I´m getting scared. I decide to ask the security at the supermarket if I can borrow their phone to make a call, I could instert my chip and they would not have to pay anything. Noooo, Digitel does not work with their phones. One of the guys escorts me to the calling center* nearby. So the guy takes me to the center, of course I am a bit worried, (where is he taking me?), and there I start my explanation again. I need to call a friend, I have no battery etc. They don´t really understand what I want but listen patiently. I am very nervous. Then I try my phone again, I manage to open it and get Rocio´s number and send her a message about by whereabouts. She sends me a message back that she is coming in 5 min. Then I sit and wait for 30 min and finally she comes. Phew!

By the time Rocio arrives I´ve spoken to several people in the phone center, about Finland and how cold it is there, for how long I have stayed in Venezuela etc. (told them my address and given my phone numer :)...hi mom!). When we leave eveybody says: ciao! hasta luego! Rocio laughs and says that I´ve made many new friends. This is what I truly love about Venezuela, how fast people adopt you, how easy it is to make "friends".

The movie was good. I don´t know the name in English but the main actors were Bruce Willis and Mos Def. I enjoyed it. No must movie though.

*Samibil is the largest and most expensive shopping center in Maracaibo.
*There are places with phones people can use to make calls in the cities. There are no phone booths, instead there are centers with many booths. You make your call and then you pay.

2006-09-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

It is dangerous take a holiday if you are a teacher at Idiomas Ruge. At the moment there are only two English teachers, Enrique and I. I´ve only seen Enrique, but never spoken to him. He is going to regret the fact that he never spoke to me, and I´m sure he´ll want to speak to me when he gets back from his holiday.

Yesterday I had two classes: one student of my own and one of Enrique´s students, a girl. Also today I had two classes, one student of mine and a group of Enrique´s: two guys. The guys were wonderful. Two musicians, who speak excellent English and were really nice and cute and possibly the most interesting people I´ve met in Venezuela sofar. They promised to give me a new social life and at the end of the class they said that they want to change teachers cause they want me to teach them instead of Enrique. And later I spoke with the coordinator and she said that they actually changed teachers and I´ll be teaching these guys in the future.

I´m sure Enrique will want to talk to me when he gets back from his holidays. He might actually want to kill me. I would for sure not like if someone stole my students = my sourse of income. I mean, for me one student more or less is no big deal, since I get paid the same amount of money no matter how many or few (as is the case) hours I work. But Enrique proabably gets paid by the hour, so ...
Actually I was sure the coordinator would tell the guys that it is impossible to change teachers like that. Cause as far as I know the students at Ruge don´t decide which teacher´s class they attend. We´ll see what happens.

2006-09-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

Today I had an interesting discussion at work. There is a problem with my working hours. I´m covering for a teacher who is on holidays and so normally I should work tonight until 8. Well, the coordinator at work told me to try and ask someone to give me a ride, cause it is too dangerous to walk home or wait for carritos in the street at that hour and there are no buses after 7.30. So, Cheche suggested that I ask my student for a ride home. I know that it is not uncommon for teachers to get rides home from students, since my teacher friends in Caracas used to get rides with their students. So, today at work I said to the cordinator that I'll ask my student for a ride and if it doesn´t work out I´ll take a taxi. The cordinator was like noooo you can not ask your students for anything. OK, no problem, I´ll take a taxi then.

I am a bit surprised by the fact that it is supposedly dangerous for me to be in the streets after dark (after 8). In Caracas is was no problem if I finished work at 8 to walk 20 min to the bus stop. And sometimes when we´d go out for a beer after work we (we=Kasia and I) would take the last bus at eleven at night and no one said that it would be too dangerous to do that.

Later, when I was leaving work, the coordinators were talking about me. About the fact that I was going to ask a student for a ride. They really think that I don´t know any Spanish at all. It is actually quite funny how people keep asking me how I can survive here without speaking Spanish. I try to tell them that I do actually speak sufficient Spanish to communicate in the shops and with the bus driver etc. but I guess my Spanish is so crap that they really don´t see how anybody could understand me. I´m sure you know the feeling when you start talking to someone in Spanish (or whatever foreign language) and they listen to you and then start speaking English. I know that I've done it to people as well, and I truly I regret it, cause I think it is the most discouraging thing one can possibly do.

About the people. My dear mother expressed some concern and maybe the rest of you are interested to hear about this as well. So first of all, I feel extremely safe because everybody keeps repeating to me the same instructions: don´t go outside after dark, don´t take the pirate carritos or taxis, and even at work they obviously take responsibility and make sure I get home safely. So, I feel like I am surrounded by resposible and caring individuals.

Mostly I associate with people from Aiesec. There are Aiesec meetings every weekend, and sometimes also during the week. I speak with my Padrino, Freddy, and the exchange resposible, Cheche/José almost every day and I don´t feel lonely. I do miss Kasia, my room mate from Caracas, sometimes. After all, she was the closest person I had in Caracas, but she is coming to Maracaibo next weekend so then I won´t have to miss her anymore. What else...nothing much. The Aiesec people are friendly, but oh so young. They keep asking me how old I am. Here an introduction goes pretty much like this: you extend you hand and say hello, then you say your name and the other person shays theirs. Then the other person asks, "so, how old are you". I guess I could start to say: come on I´m a woman, I don´t need to answer that or, like someone suggested, just say that I am 21. But I don´t really see the advantage with lying about my age, only possible trouble when the person finds out how old I really am, so I always just say how old I am and anticipate the look of surprise mixed with pity on their faces. The American (or north american, I should say) girl, Kathryn, paid me a nice compliment when she said that I look "youthful" for a 26 year old. I did not know whether to laugh or cry. I have to admit that I still miss some of my friends in Caracas, but I think Maracaibo has potential as well.

2006-09-09T17:44:00.000-07:00

Talking about football/soccer...I really would have liked to have seen the game Finland vs. Portugal. For those who don´t know, Finland and Portugal played a tie, and I heard that it was a good game for Finland - that is "we" could have won. Wow! But football is not the sport the Venezuelans are passionate about, here game nr one is baseball. However, the other day the shopkeeper at the bakery where I go to buy my lunch most of the days asked me where I was from and when I said Finland he immediately replied: "Häkkinen" and I said yes, and "Räikkönen". It was a beautiful moment.

Today has been a day of immense progress. I took the carrito by myself, not once but four times! A peruvian girl invited me to come and watch her salsa class. She suggested that I take a taxi, but I decided to ask my roommate and her boyfriend where this salsa thing it is situated and see if I could get there by carrito. And so, I had to take two carritos. It was ok, just that once the driver didn´t understand that I wanted to get off so I had to walk one extra block, no big deal.

And next week I migth start salsa classes. That would be something. The classes looked like a lot of fun, the people were friendly, and the teacher was cute. What more can you ask for?

2006-09-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I finally called some friends. There were a couple of phone calls that had to be made to a couple of friends in Caracas. So made my first phonecall entirely in Spanish! I was really proud of myself, tuulettaing (what´s the word in English when you e.g. score a goal and then you go around punching air and stuff. In Finnish this is to "tuulettaa") in my room hissing yesss yesss to myself. Enjoying the small mirakles in life.

Maybe I should add that I have some mobile problems - I can´t send any SMS or make phone calls from my mobile cause I can´t rechange it. Two phone companies, Digitel and Infonet, are merging and for some strange reason I can recharge my Digitel phone card only after September 15th. So msn, email and my fixed phone have been my means to communicate with the outside world.

I´ve actually been fine without my mobile sofar, but last night I started getting strange phonecalls and I was unable to call the number to check who was fooling around with me. At 1 a.m. my phone rung, and at first I thought it was the alarm and turned it off. Then it rung again and I answered, "Elina", and the other person ended the call. And then s/he called again, and ended the call as soon as I answered. Then s/he called again and I turned my phone off. I still have the number and if I wouldn´t be such a coward I´d call there now to see who it was. Maybe later....at 1 a.m.

Today we had a water desaster at work. There was a thunder storm and water started pouring from the sky. And pretty soon water was pouring into the Idiomas Ruge office. I didn´t notice anything at first. At the time I was probabaly trying to explain (with drawings, my folder, hands and feet) to my student what x-ray is. But when the class ended I noticed that there was a process going on in the office. All the books had to be taken out of the shelves and folders dried. I could not help but wonder how the building would survive a snowstorm. It probably wouldn´t. Somehow I managed to restrain myslef from explaining what kind of weather conditions buildings in Finland have to suffer.

By the way, when I was giving my presentation about Finland to the Aiesec gang, I was asked what was the biggest choque (I´ll never learn to spell this word, I really need to learn how to use the spellchecker) for me here in Venezuela has been sofar. I could not think of anything. But today when I was in the supermarket I remembered when the guy in a supermarket in Caracas told me: I only have one life, when I asked him to help me (or he offered to help me and when I was unable to say what I wanted immediately, he said, "I only have one life" and walked away). That was the biggest choque. It was unbelievably rude. So I´ve had it pretty easy here sofar.

The student I had today was Colombian. I asked him about the differences between Venezuela and Colombia and he said that the people in Venezuela, especially in Maracaibo are much ruder.

2006-09-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

I´m no longer the "new" trainee, or the only new trainee, in Maracaibo. Kathryn, from the US, arrived on Friday. We were ca 10 people who went to meet her at the airport and from there we went out to party. Kathryn is from Chicago, and she´ll be teaching English here like me, but in another school. She is living in the same house with another trainee, Neka (we are three trainees alltogether) from Nigeria, who also teaches English.

So, from the airport we went to a place to dance. Peoeple were teaching me to dance again, or to move my ass I should say. I know it is all in good intention, but I can´t help feeling extremely selfconscious when people look at me and start saying, you have to do this and move this part and don´t move that part etc. I guess it is inevitable, but I wonder when they´ll stop commenting. The funny thing was that after playing latin American music, Reggaeton etc. for some hours they played some house, and then I got to shine. Then I was the expert on how to dance and people said to me that they want me to teach them. I felt even more conufused. But I had a really good time. And when the disco/dancing place closed at 3 we went to a really posh area (there was a security guard with a gun) and danced around and in the pool until 6 a clock in the morning. Drinking cuba libres, rum, and what not.

Now I need to figure out what is happening today. I know that there is some Aiesec meeting, but I don´t know if I´m supposed to be going there or not. Some people said to me yesterday (we had an Aiesec meeting yesterday, I had my presentation about Finland (which went well, with a routine)) "see you tomorrow" but since the meeting was in Spanish, apart from my presentation which was in English, I was left in the dark concerning today. So I think I´ll have to call some people and try to find out whether I´m supposed to go and if so, how to get there.

Yesterday I took a carrito with my room/flat mate for the first time. Carritos are a Maracaibo thing, a specialty found nowhere else. I heard about them already in Caracas and I thought they were some kind of buses. Well they are but not quite. Carritos are normal cars that function like buses that is they have fixed routes. You get in and say where you are going and depending on how far it is you are going you pay either a corto (short) or a long (don´t know the word). Then you tell the driver when you want to get off. I never appreciated metros before, but now I know that if there would be a metro in Maracaibo life would be a million times easier for me. I would not have to keep asking people how to get to places (at least not as much) and I would not have to be able to tell the driver where I need to get off. I´m not even sure if I´d recognize the house I live in.

2006-08-31T16:00:00.000-07:00

Today I felt happy and calm in Maracaibo for the first time. I had just arrived to work (by bus) and realized that I was quite comfortable.

Yesterday I took the bus by myself for the first time. The day before yesterday I was accompanied by an Aiesecer, Veronica, who was kind enough to warn me about not wearing jewlery or displaying my mobile in public etc. Sweet, I don´t know how she imagines that I survived the first month and a half. No, I really should be grateful when people give adivce. So, anyways, when I took the bus for the first time by myslef (yesterday) it was a show. When the bus arrived on the stop there was a guy (this is common) hanging out the door. I thought he was the one we are supposed to pay. but it turned out that he wasn´t. Well, so he asks me immediately: where are you going. I said: I don´t know the name, and went in. They never (as far as I know and I asked some people about this afterwards) ask you upon entering where you are going, so this guy was just ..well, wanted to say something. So, I enterd the bus and sat down. Everybody started looking at me. They would turn around every two minutes to look at me. I felt awkward in the extreme. Then I asked the driver to stop and got out and that was it. I don´t know why everybody was staring at me. Today I took the bus again and nobudy payed me any special attention.

I find it difficult not knowing what the proper way is to react to people´s remarks. Here someone yells (whistles or gestures) after me on the street every day. It´s unbelieveble. Once I got a blow kiss (?) from a guy on a bus, which was quite sweet, once a guy called me hermana (sister), today two older men talked to me, one said good afternoon, madame (buenas, seniora) and the other one I could not understand. Then some guys called me "morena", which means something like dark girl, and when I did not react (or I don´t really know if they expected me to react, I don´t think so) thay said, "gringa" instead. And once a beggar woman started calling after me in streetlights, which was quite uncomfortable.

So...still feeling a bit awkward, and I don´t know if I will ever feel totally at home here. We´ll see. I´ll let you know.

2006-08-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

One thing that I really hate...or find extremely difficult, to be more diplomatic, is that I can´t walk to places. It´s the heat. People just stay in the shade and take the bus and move in the sun as little as possible. But since I don´t know how to use buses I´ve had to walk a little bit. On Sunday I found out that my working place is only a 30 min walk away from where I live. The problem is that in order for me to be able to walk to work the working place should be situated max a 10 min walk away from my house. And now we are in the cool period. I can´t wait for the real heat to begin.

I took the bus to work for the first time this morning. A guy from Aiesec, José, whose place I stayed at for the first five days, has been driving me to work. I could get used to someone driving me around all the time, but I´m afraid I´m just going to have to learn to use buses. Naturally there are no schedules for the buses, and I have to tell the driver when and where I want to get off. What a wonderful opportunity for me to be able to practise my Spanish.

Today I walked to the supermarket. It is a 45 min walk from my house, but really I can´t buy any milkproducts or cheese or anything that will spoil in the heat as long as I am walking. Fortunately my flatmate said that we can go grocery shopping together on Saturday.

What else, I had my welcome party on Saturday and met new Aiesec faces and I have some new numbers on my mobile. Everybody keeps asking me how old I am, which is always a good way to make one feel at ease (since everybody else is 22). And everybody highlightes the importance of learning the magic word "verga" only used in Maracaibo and which the Marracucho dialect, or language I should say, is based on. You say: "como esta la verga", when you meet someone, "vergacion" when you are surprised, and so one. The ways to use this word are numerous. Anyways, the people here are very proud of their region (I was warned about this in Caracas) and more religious than the people in Caracas. One thing I have to mention about the party was that we were playing drinking games and!!! some guys took the drinks for some girls. Girls really do not drink a lot here. José kindly offered to take my drinks for me and I (rudely) informed him that I am quite capable of drinking my alcohol myself, than you very much. Was a nice party, really.

I´m happy to be able to inform you that the roach has not visited me since the first evening. There are some small roaches in the bathroom and kitchen but they are really cute compared to the big ones and don´t bother me.

I finished reading the first short story in Spanish in my book of cuentas (short stories). I understood enough to enjoy it. Yeppeee!

2006-08-26T12:41:00.000-07:00

First night in my new home. In the evening I noticed, to my horror, that I don´t live alone in the room. This was my first one-on-one encounter with a cucaracha (spelling?). The cockroach (spelling?) took a tour around the room, starting at the top of the wall and by the time I came back from the bathroom it sprinted through the floor. At least I hope it was the same one. So, after being paralysed for the forst two seconds I started to think that it is just like a spider. They are supposed to be harmless and they are not really interested in people. This is something I´ll have to get used to, I´m afraid.

Rainforest soundtrack was changed into street noise. I don´t mind a bit, I feel less alone when I hear that there are people and cars out int he street. My flat mate left early in the morning, she went somewhere for the weekend with her workmates. I stayed in bed until 12 and decided that I need to find a supermarket. Czecze was kind enough to take me there. I bought my survival kit: ham, cheese and mayonase to make sandwiches, oat flakes to try and make my usual Finnish breakfast (cheap and healthy), yoghurt and milk. Naturally I had to forget something, this time is was the water. Fortunately my flat mate left some behind so I´ll just borrow hers. I also have to wait for my flat mate to return before I can cook myself a warm meal. I don´t know how to use the stove.

Entering and getting out of the apartment is a circus. On the apartment door there are two locks and then there is the lock for the house door and the lock for the building compound. I´ll have to reserve at least five minutes every time I want to enter or exit. Of course, all the keys look exactly the same.

In sum, first impression: Shit, I have to learn so many new things again and get used to new circumstances. E.g. I feel filthy almost all the time. My room is cool but all the other rooms are hot. And outside it is hot too. I don´t think the heat as such is a problem but everything feels dirty and in the kitchen I feel like there might be cockroaches everywhere (and I am sure this is really the case). When I was looking for a plate I found a dead insect in a spiderweba and a baby cuckaracha in one of the cupboards. I never thought I might be a cleaning freak but...well, I think a clening lady will come and clean our place every two weeks. I´ll be counting the days. There is supposed to be less bacteria in colder climate. This sentence has a totally new meaning for me now.

It´s 4 p.m. and I´m tired. I think I´ll take a nap.

2006-08-25T18:37:00.000-07:00

I am sittin in my new apartment, or to be more precise in my new roommate´s/flatmate´s room. She brought me strawberry ice cream and has really made me feel welcome. Now let´s reverse a little.

On Sunday evening I took the bus. But first...During my last weekend in Caracas I had an ephiphany (spelling?) or a revelation. People here claim that they drink a lot, but they don´t. Now I know why. It´s not safe. It´s so logical. If you have to take a taxi, a bus, metro, whatever, walk, home in a city like Caracas you can´t afford to be drunk, it´s simply dangerous.

Anyways, on Sunday I took the bus to Maracaobo. I was a bit worried cause I like to be able to use the toilet whenever I want to and I was afraid I´s be stuck in a bus for 12 hours. Often, thank god, I stress for nothing, but this time I was right to be worrked about that. The first time when the bus stopped I was watching people, looking what they left in the bus and what they took out with them and decided not to take my backpack and go out. I was not the only one who stayed in the bus but the majority of the passengers went out. So, I was sitting there and I noticed that a guy is standing behind my seat. I turned around and he started walking back. What the hell was he doing there, making sure I was sleeping or what. So, no exiting, no leaving my things, just sitting on the bus thinking that I am not thirsty and I most definately don´t need the bathroom.

I arrived in maracabo at 6.30 in the morning or something, and at 7 José , or Cheche, was there to pick me up. We had an american breakfast and he took me for a tour around town. He kept asking, "now what do you want to do" and I had no idea. I mean I don´t know anything about this place and I´m supposed to make decisions abotu what to do next. Well, he is a really consderate guy and everything.

Work is exactly the same here as in Caracas. I teach two classes, one from 9.30-12.00 and one from 14.30-17.00. The atmosphere is more laid back here than in S. Ignacio but other than that the work is exactly the same.

Maracaibo is very different from Caracas. I miss Caracas, to be honest. Maracaibo is totally flat. Every street looks exactly the same (this will change, for sure, when I get to know the place better) and I am totally lost. My first impression is that guys are more vulgar here. In Caracas it happened a couple fo times that strangers (men) would salute me in the street, but they would just say hola, and that was all. Here it happaned that guys pass and ask "German or English" or make funny noises when I pass. I feel a bit stupid.

Venezuelan femininity, finally I feel like I can actually say something about it. I´ve been observing my students and I am quite amazed. In my class I have a girl who is 4 years old and her mother makes her wear heels. And the heels are so high that I myslef would not be able to walk in them, but this 4 year old girl is expected to be walking around in those heels. Of course the seven year old girls wear heels as well. Another incident: I was trying to teach my seven year old students the words lunch and breakfast. So I asked every day what they had for breakfast. One day the girl, Gabriela (the mean but cute one) said, she did not have breakfast. I asked why, and she said that she is too fat, that she is on a diet. And this girl is not fat, not even chubby.

Now I have to get going. The girl whose room I´m writing in has to get up at 5 in the morngin so I better let her get her sleep.

2006-08-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

I though that I´d be in Caracas until the end of August, at least, but yesterday by boss informed me that on Sunday I´m going to Maracaibo. It´s too soon. I feel that there are still many things to see and do in Caracas and, surprisingly, I feel that I actually have a life here now. I think that if I would be given the choise now between doing my traineeship in Maracaibo or in Caracas I would choose Caracas.

I used to think that I can find people everywhere. That where ever I go it is up to me to create a life and that it would be possible to adjust to any place. What naivety, what idealism. The reality is that some places suit people better than others. Vaasa was not the best place for me, Greifswald was very good, Disneyland was not for me, and Caracas I like a lot.

Caracas is not a pretty city. The architecture is not special and the streets are polluted. But...there is something magical about this city. First of all, magical is a word I can use to describe something I don´t understand. And I don´t understand Caracas. It is big and I know that I´ve only seen one small part of it, but what I like about it is that it has many sides. One day I visited a part of town where there were people selling crafts in the street and doing circus trics and I felt really happy to have discovered such a creative atmosphere in the middle of a town, like an... what´s the thing you find in the desert, when you find water in a desert? And I like how life is in the streets here. People are not just on their way to work but talking with friends, drinking, hanging out, taking a break, watching the people walking by etc (and I´m not taking about beggars here). And there is noise everywhere. Horns honking, people shouting, music in the cars, alarms going off, just noises of life.

Now I know what it means when people say that the people in Caracas are firendly. It means easily approachable. Somebody initiates a conversation with me on the bus stop almost every day. And these are normal people not freaks. When people hear me and Kasia speaking English in the streets (although we have been adviced not to speak English but Spanish, cause it is safer) people sometimes ask where we are from etc. I can ask people for directions in the street and more than once people have offfered to help spontaneously.

I think one thing that definately makes this city magic realist is the presence of the Avila mountain. You can always navigate according to where the Avila is situated (unless it is night of course) and you have something green in signt all the time. This is a surprisingly green city. Also, you can start clibming the mountain directly from the city and then you find yourself, again, in a totally different environment. Also, the house where Kasia and I live is near the forest, so we have rainforest sounds going on in the evening and it´s really exotic.

The next update will most likely be coming from Maracaibo.

2006-08-16T16:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday this seven year old girl, Gabriela, who I think I mentioned in a previous mail, came to class half an hour early (god bless) and had nail polish with her. She wanted to paint my fingernails. I got the choise between stars or flowers. I chose stars and got flowers. So, now I have a blue stripe on the top of my nail and a pink and blue flower on each nail. Cute, is all I can say. I also got a pink star on my face, even though I think nail polish is not usually applied on the face. I just couldn´t say no. After class I was quick enough to scrape it off. Today Garbriela showed up with make up. I was thrilled. So I got some blue eye shadow and rouge applied on my face by a seven year old girl. When Ruben (also seven years old), who is the other student in this group, arrived he said: the teacher is a monster. Grabriela just said, Ruben is a boy, he does not understand anything, Teacher, you are beautiful. While Gabriela was in the bathroom getting wet paper (I think even the artist herself understood that her style was a bit radical) I took a look in the mirror. I could kind of understand Ruben´s comment but suggested that I look more like a clown than a monster. "Clown monster", was Ruben´s reply.

Children are crule. Now my Spanish is on the level where I can understand most of what my students say to each other and I can small talk with a taxi driver and people on the bus. Gabriela is really a handful, and today she thereatened to kill Ruben. She said, "I am going to kill you Ruben, it would be so easy". I went to sit between the two, earlier Gabriela had tried to hit him, and had no idea what I could say. Ruben is really sweet, and Gabriela is sweet too but also extremely evil. I haven´t figured out how to handle this situation, so if anybody has any good tips I can use all the help I can get.

I´ve been twice to the movies. Last week on wednesday and yesterday. First I saw "Jack and Rose", which I recommend although it´s no must. Yesterday I saw...I can´t remember the name of the film but it was about smoking. I guess it was a kind of comedy. I don´t think I´ve ever seen a movie from that category, it´s a harmless thing and you can definately see it on a Tuesday when you need to relax - not bad.

I should go and check out some news on the internet. I haven´t read a single newspaper or magazine since I arrived and have no idea what is going on in the world. However, I bought an English-Spanish-English dictionary and a book which I am translating. I´m actually quite pround of the book. I found it in the youth section of a bookstore in the mall where I work. It countains short stories, which are all written by two people: en experenced writer and a young person. And all the stories are written in Spanish, and the writers are from various Spanish speaking countries (Spain & Latin America).

It is clear that Kasia and I have tooootally different methods for learning Spanish. Kasia is doing exercises and reading grammar. In the evenings she does a language course on her laptop, she brought some CD´c /DVD´s with her from Poland. She started speaking Spanish as son as she arrived, that is she already had a conversation with the taxi driver who took her to the appartment from the airport. I´m pretty impressed. But there is no way I´ll be attempting to do what she is doing. I am no masochist. I still believe strongly that my brain will just effortlessly pick up the language as I am walking in the streets. Also, I plan to read novels or ....what´s it called... fiction. I know that my Spanish has already improved, but it´s not like I can have an intelligent conversation with anyone in Spanish.

Now I´ll go and see what is going on in the world. I hope the US is not planning on invading any time soon.

2006-08-14T15:59:00.000-07:00

6 min internet time

The concert (Serenata Guyanesa) was great. It is the most famous and best Venezuelan band who plays traditional Venezuelan music, this is what I´ve been told. I don´t know how to describe it, it is mostly happy (nothing like traditional Finnihs or Portugese music) and, well like folk music. Easily approchable and the people in the concert were obviously extatic and participated by clappin, shouting and commenting from the very beginning. We did not sit behind a pelar/pilar. Kasia was kind enough to inform me that theatres are usually built so that everybody who has a seat can see. Well, in this country honestly...

2006-08-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

I was really proud of myself yestrday. I went and bought coucert tickets to me an Kasia (my room mate). I took the metro all by myself (hi mom!) and asked for dirctions to the thatre and stood in line for 90 minutes, had a littl discussion with the lady in front of me and in the end the helped me buy the tickets and I felt so extrmely proud of myself. I mean, I am able to talk to people and I did all this y myslef. Of course, I would rather have had my roommate with me but sh coud not come. She waited for he bus for one hour and hen the bus came but did not even stop becasue it was full and then it started to rain and... But really, it was simple, I did not even hav to change metro lines.

So we got the last two seats that were next to each other. Probably we are sitting behing a pilar (pelar?) and can´t see a thing but it´s a concert right. We are there to listen to the music. This band is really famous, and the tickets werre not too expensive and I´m looking fwd to the concert tonight.

What else...we have a new house mate. Jeff, a Venezuelan guy who has also (like me) been a foreign exhange student in Minnesota, USA, and earns his living teaching English. He moved in last Sunday and it is really fun havig him around.

Work..is going well. My students love me. I´ve been teaching two groups fo the last week or two and one individual. One group consists of two 7 year olds, Gabriela and Ruben. Gabriela climbs on my lap but is a bit difficult, cause almost every class sofar she has put up a scene: refuses to do anything, lies on the floor, takes the remot control (or ties to take it) etc. The other group consists of five 10-11 year old guys. One of my collegaues said one day that after I have to be either a maryr or a saint to put up with the little monsters. Well, yesterday was their last clas and the asked me if I would be still in September when they´ll take Engish classes.

Internet time up.

2006-08-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

A weekend at the beach again, and I´ve got the burns to show for it. I´m a shrimp, but so is my room mate and so are the Venezuelan, Argentinian and Italian who were there as well.

We were a smaller group this time. My polish room mate, a Venezuelan Aiesecer, Davide, an Argetinian trainee, Diego, and an Italian trainee, Dina, me and another Venezuelan, Demetrio. And what made this all special was that I had invited Demetrio to go with us. I´ll have to tell you about this guy, to me it is quite amazing.

We met on the airplane from Paris to Caracas. I was sitting in a row of three people: me, Demetrio, and Demetrio´s mom, both from Caracas. They both spoke English, especially the son speaks very good English so it was easy to communicate. Naturally I was curious to meet some people from Caracas. I was impressed, there seemed to be no interultural communication problems whatsoever and Demetrio and his mother helped me out at the airport in Caracas, which was a great help. We exchanged phonenumbers and I was determined to get in contact with him. After all, I knew nobudy in this huge place.

So, one weekend Demetrio invited me to go to the Avila (a mountain which you can see from almost everywhere here, it´s right next to the city) with his friend. It was very nice. And this weekend he came to the beach with us "Aiesecers". The funny thing is that he was supposedly coming with us, but in the end he invited us to another beach where his family has an appartment and we ended up staying there the whole weekend (instead of a one day trip, which is what we planned) and ...it was really really nice. And I was extremely pround because I had discovered such a great guy (read between the lines: scarse in Caracas :) :))and was able to introduce him to everybody.

My internet time is over. Thank you a million times for your encouraging comments. Love you, miss you!

2006-08-02T15:34:00.000-07:00

So...where to begin. Someone asked me about Venezuelan men, whether they are hot or not. Well, I know that the appropriate (but boring) thing to say is that it is like everywhere in the world, some are nice and some are not. But I´ll try to be a bit more descriptive than that. Well, this is difficult...Hmmm...there are some really cute guys around but, but, but I have to say that the style here...well, it´s not quite my style. I like dark skin, it is not about that, but the men here are a bit too macho for my personal taste. How can I give some kind of objective description? I won´t even attempt it. I without getting into details, it´s not like I walk around in amazement. However, I think the feeling is mutual, I mean, I am just not sexy enough for these guys. Venezuelan women are HOT! They dress in a very revealing way and I...don´t dress like that. I´ve also heard from multiple sources that local women do a lot of plastic surgery, silicons are not unusual at all.

Let´s change the subject. I have to try to forget that everything I write will be available for everybody to read, so mabye I should be a bit more careful about what I say.

I went shopping on Sunday. I´ve managed to destroy two pairs of shoes since I arrived here and I had blisters on my feet and had to go buy a pair of comfortable shoes. And I hate shopping. So, I asked some people for advice and they mentioned some stores in the shopping mall near to where I live. I went there and started from ground level and worked my way up (it´s not a very big mall). The cheap shoes felt cheap and the expensive shoes were all the same. So I bought a pair of red converse trainers. I don´t know if it was the best decision I´ve ever made but under the circumstances I could have done a lot worse. I try to see whether people stare at my shoes or not (they are leather) and sometimes I think that maybe I could have a made a more low key choise. But on the other hand, I´m in a Carribean country and isn´t that supposed to mean that I can wear colorful clothes...and shoes! This is what I keep telling myself.

Just in order to avoid misunderstandings. I complained about the dancing earlier. Now, you really don´t have to feel sorry for me. I love dancing and I think it is fun when peole are trying to teach me salsa. Last weekend I had another occasion. There were no parties on Friday (that we knew of) but on Saturday we met a friend of a friend who invited us (my Polish roommate, her Polish friend, and me) to his place for some cuba libres. His taxi driver friend drove us there and we danced. On the way back we were all a bit tipsy, including the driver. They kept telling us that this (drink and drive) is totally normal. Great. This is what we get to hear a lot, in Venezuela this and in Venezuela that. They also say that it is OK for women to get drunk here, but sofar I have not seen a single woman drunk. I realize that people have ulterior motives, after all some aspects of human life are universal.

Yesterday the bus broke down in the middle fo the road. The driver said, sorry but you have to walk. Everybody who knows how marvellous my sense of orientation is (not) can imagine how happy I was to hear those words. Then I just kept my cool and followed some people to the next stop, which was at the mall where I´d been shopping on Sunday. And from there I walked "home". No big deal, but first experience in this kind of thing. One day the bus started smoking from the inside and we just waited for a while, a passenger took his notebook and cooled the bus down a little bit and then we continued. And the people stayed calm during the whole episode. I´ll be a different person when I leave Venezuela.

2006-07-28T17:17:00.000-07:00

p. s.

We came back to the internet cafe with my room mate in order to find out whether there are any parties happening tonight. No such luck.

What I really manted to say is: Thank you SOOO much for your comments. I am sitting here with tears in my eyes. Literally.

also, I should explain why I eat at subway. Sure, it is not the most traditional Venezuelan place on earth but! it is the healthest food I have found here and my stomache accepts it. All the traditional stuff I´ve tried sofar has been be deep fried. I´m sure you don´t care to know all the details about my stomache problems, you can imagine. Also, I´m on "survival mode" that is I try to make life as easy for myself as possible. I´m sure I´ll have ample opportunity to torture my stomache during one year.

2006-07-28T15:33:00.000-07:00

The weekend at the beach was great. And now I have a new goal for my stay in Venezuela: in addition to learning Spanish I also need to learn how to move my ass, in other words to dance salsa. I also got a tan and managed not to burn myslef very much. I´ve got a "polish flag" on my back but nobudy noticed. Of course they were commenting that I am "transparent" (=very white) and tried to teach me to dance. I tried to explain that Finland is the coutry of heavy metal and hard rock. Here people listen to Regeton (?spelling) a lot. That is a kind of dance where you imitate copulation, for those of you who didn´t know. I also tried to explain that Finland is a very puritanist country and that we don´t have Regeton in Finland (apart from the song "Gasolina"). I think my poor dancing skills convinced them.

My Spanish sucks. Instead of being "de puta madre" it is "una putada de mierda". But I learn new words every day. Today I learned that a small sandwich at Subway is a "fifteen" (quinze). The guys at Subway already taught me onion in Spanish and how to say a sandwich "to go" and "I´ll eat here" (para llavar and para comer aqui).

What else...I´ve been told (by many people) that Venezuela is more like a caribean countrey than southamerican. One example of this are the colorful buses. Also the mentality is supposed to be more relaxed but I woudn´t know.

People keep telling me that the people here are very freindly. Sure, why not. But the other day I was in a supermarket looking for washing powder. A guy who worked there came by and asked if he could help. I clasped my hands together and gave him a big smile, signalling "you bet", and you know what he did! He said, "I only have one life" and passed. This would NEVER (knock knock knock) happen in Finland. I just laughed. What else could I do. Of course I planned a million things I would say to the guy if myu spanish would be good enough.

2006-07-21T16:18:00.000-07:00

I am still alive.
I just refused a job my boss wanted me to take because we are planning a trip to the beach this (long, monday off) weekend.

I´m living with an old woman, her son, a cat and a Polish girl. We share a room with the polish girl.
For the first two days I was pretty scared, I was put to work right away but nobudy bohtered to tell me where I can buy food etc. But now I know how to get to work and I´ve met some nice people and I feel much better.

What else...4 min internet time to go...

I like the job. I have two groups for now, one woth two students and one with seven. They ahve a vacational, that is a two week course. I am now in Caracas and I am not sure when I´ll be going to maracaibo. In two weeks or in two months I don´t know.

So far I have not been robbed or molested or anything. I feel comfortable on the bus and in the streets, even if I stay in very limited places, that is I do not go anywhere and I try to be supercareful.

It is not too hot here, but everybody says that maracaibo is really hot. The air conditioning is driving me crazy!

gotta go,
kisses

Introduction

2006-07-10T06:22:00.000-07:00

On Wednesday, if everything goes according to plan (and sofar nothing seems to have gone according to plan) I'm flying to Venezuela to do a one year traineeship with Aiesec.

I'll be teaching English in Caracas and Maracaibo.

I wanted to write a blog instead of sending mass mail to people and I hope this is going to work out.

Now I have to go and eat some strawberries.