8/8/22
On Saturday evening, lots of family came over to celebrate my host dad's birthday. My host mom served Mexican soup and tres leches cake, both of which were delicious. I enjoyed a can of honey ale from the Bogotá Beer Company (BBC), pictured below – their branding has a natural and rustic aesthetic that I appreciate. Apparently my other host dad used to run a large beer company in Bogotá, so I plan to ask him for his opinion on the BBC once he comes back from his travels (he sent me a selfie of him yesterday at a beautiful mosque in Istanbul).
Remnants of the birthday party the next morning
Beer from the Bogotá Beer Company (BBC)
While on a walk today (Monday), I saw spotted "BBC" on the wall of a building. I poked around and took some photos of the facilities.
BBC on Avenida Carrera 19
Two conversations from the evening stood out to me – with both expanding my understanding of Bogotá and of Colombia.
The first of these was with a friend of one of my host siblings. He has been best friends with her for a really long time. He told me that he used to me homophobic, and then one day my host sibling told him that she was LGBT+. "At that point," he said to me, "I had two choices. Either I abandoned my best friend, or I changed my mind. I chose to change my mind." He explained to me that Colombia is a very Catholic country, so from a young age you hear - from you grandparents, and other relatives – that it's a sin to be gay, you hear homosexuality being looked down upon and described in derogatory terms. He said it's very hard to break away form that mindset when it's been instilled from such a young age.
I've noticed at almost all homes I've been to in Colombia the presence of statues of the virgin Mary, as well as rosaries and other symbols of Catholicism. I've often wondered how deep these Catholic beliefs go, especially given many of these same families do not go to church on Sundays to my knowledge. I've wondered if the traditions and symbols are more cultural that deeply religious – yet this conversation and my host dad's party makes me think that these is some set of Catholic beliefs that accompanies these symbols. I'm very interested in better understanding the role of religion in Colombian society. Below is a store that I wandered into during my first or second week in Bogotá – I've never seen anything like it in the US.
One of many Jesus stores in Bogotá
(That's what I've been calling them but I don't think that's their official name)
The second conversation that stood out to me it was with a woman who had attended an American school in Bogotá. I asked if it was Colegio Nueva Granada (CNG), an American school that my 16-year-old host brother attends. I haven't actually met the host brother yet because he is at summer camp in the US, but I stayed in his room for my first five weeks here, so I saw his many "CNG"-embroidered shirts and pants (part of his school uniform) each time I entered his walk-in closet.
It turned out that she had indeed attended CNG, and in fact she knew my host parents. She had asked about my thesis topic, and I explained to her what I was looking into. Eventually the conversation tuned to Stanford – she said "That's really such an accomplishment to get into that school." She was asking me if Stanford had been my first choice, and I explained that it had been – that I had applied Early Action. I told her that I wanted to go to to Stanford partly because I had gone to a very innovative high school in Silicon Valley – one that emphasized interdisciplinary, project-based, and student-directed learning – and that I felt that Stanford would be a continuation of that approach to learning and change-making. She then described how CNG was trying to implement similarly interdisciplinary and project-based learning (PBL) curriculum. She also mentioned that the school had a sister school that served lower-income students, and that they were scheduling events that would promote integration between the two schools. She just told me today that she set up a meeting between me and the Director of the school, for us to discuss project-based learning. I'm thinking vaguely about jobs after graduation, and I'm thinking that I would enjoy working there as a teacher – potentially while also doing a research assistantship at Los Andes, and/or holding some (potentially contracting) position at USAID, where I could better understand how they design and implement their programs. In any case, I'm really excited to get to speak with the director, and especially their partnership with a sister school. I've always been very interested in how to (1) improve education systems, and (2) redistribute social capital across class brackets – so I hope that this conversation can further my thinking on both of those topics.
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