on a lighter note...

Yesterday I was calling around, trying to find out when the series of meetings started, but people find me hard to understand over the phone in Spanish. Not being as used to foreigners here, they tend to say things like, "Where are you from, I can't understand anything you're saying..." then answering the question I just asked in my supposedly unintelligible Spanish. And my Spanish is pretty good - I'll never get rid of my accent completely, but people who know me find it possible to conduct entire conversations with me. Colombians just seem to get personal very quickly. Another example, in my mind anyway, is the sign I saw on a dress shop: "Dresses for fatties arriving soon." ("Vestidos para Gorditas llegaran pronto!") I kid you not.