Life beyond teaching: cello and nature

While most of my time here in Colombia is spent teaching (or preparing to teach), this past Friday I got to perform the first Bach cello suite as well as accompany the seminary choir for a piece during an annual concert put on by student development . I don't have my own cello here (I'm looking into my options to see about fixing that), but a friend of a friend in student development is a music student who had a spare cello, so with five days notice, I attempted to make up for months of not playing. My fingers were sore from lack of calluses and it was weird adjusting to a different instrument, but I think it came together reasonably well. This definitely reinforced my desire to get a cello here and get back into playing music regularly!

Seminary choir practicing for the concert, led by Santiago Benavides, a well-known Christian musician here and husband of the leader of the student development office.

My other main hobby, the outdoors, has definitely taken a backseat here, but two weeks ago I was able to go on a wonderful retreat with other faculty and staff from the seminary, where we got to enjoy nature around the reservoir at Guatapé, about two hours from Medellín. A very generous donor to the seminary paid for the entire seminary faculty, staff, and their families to attend this two-day retreat (in four groups), the first time this kind of thing has happened in years, if ever, due to the normally prohibitive cost. This was a huge blessing and was cool to see how great of a community there is here among all types of people, from the security guards and janitors to support staff, faculty, and administrators. This was a great chance to decompress from work, relax in nature, reflect spiritually, and get to know others from the seminary better than before.

On a hike overlooking the reservoir near Guatapé with friends who work in student development, English courses, extension programs, and the library.

"Boating" on the lake. The boat more resembled a motorized dock (you can see it in the picture below with the white chairs lined up on it).

View from our hotel in our own private part of the lake. Water level was noticeably low as Colombia has been in a relatively dry spell lately (with severe drought in the far north of the country).