el paro

Last Monday, I walked out on the usually busy carrera septima with Sam and tried to get a bus. I quickly realized that I hadn't seen a single bus going in either direction. For a street that is normally full of buses, I knew something wasn't normal. I jumped in a taxi and asked what was going on. The driver told me that it was a paro, there wouldn't be buses all day because the drivers were on strike. When I arrived in the office, Myriam told us not to worry because bus strikes in the past had never lasted more than a day.

Below, a man directing traffic in the streets for money. He would let people go if they gave him change.

Little did we know that it would be 4 whole days until we would be able to hail a bus. The second day, over 21,000 taxi drivers joined the strike. Bogota was paralyzed and over 8 million passengers were affected. The strike spread to other Colombian cities and caused more chaos. Frustration and growing tension led to violent protests in the outskirts of the city. Bogota's mayor called in the army to deal with the violence. Private cars became taxis/buses and groups of people would pile into the backs of trucks to get around. After four long days, the buses came back and now everything is back to normal!

Unfortunately, we weren't able to go to Usme last week because of the strike. Sam and his parents were visiting and had planned an entire day of olympics for the kids. We will still do the olympics tomorrow, but it's such a bummer that they couldn't see the mission and meet our kids! Luckily, we were still able to do a lot of other things in the Bogota area. We spent an afternoon at Monserrate and it was absolutely beautiful. You really could see the entire city!

The Majors were able to meet the kids and people from the cathedral during the coffee break after church. They tried arepas, obleas, chorizo, and drank lots of coffee! We even played rana, the typical Colombian game. We also went bowling, colombian style: the pins were put up by a person who also rolled the ball back. We went to an open market where dogs were doing tricks for money. We went out to lunch with Myriam and drank coffee at her apartment afterwards. It was a special afternoon and I'm so glad that we were able to spend that time together!

I loved sharing my Colombian family and the culture here with the Majors. I am so thankful that they came all the way to Bogota to visit me and even brought lots of new books and movies from the states that we are really excited to start. I am so grateful for everything and appreciate their support so much. Like I said earlier, Brittany and I will be doing the olympics at usme tomorrow. We will be sure to take lots of pictures of all the great decorations and olympic medals that the Majors brought for the kids. They are going to love it!

Love, Kate