What's to eat and do in Cali?

Hola all! We are staying busy while in Cali. The weather remains very mild especially if you are from Iowa. We are comfortable here in shorts or pants, short sleeved shirts in the day and add a light jacket for the evening. Sandals are my choice in foot ware. It has rained about half of the days we have been here, but it is the rainy season. It hasn’t rained for an entire day yet, only for a few hours.
On Friday we went to the fruit and vegetable market. It was very interesting. You have tables overflowing with fruits primarily, but there are also some vegetables and herbs. We were able to try many varieties of fruits. We don’t know most of them in English. Some we are very familiar with, melons, apples, pears, bananas, kiwi, grapes, mango, pineapple, guava…, but then we also had lulo, a cactus fruit, something that sounds like aunion, grenadilla ( it’s the one the kids now refer to as bird snot), guanabanya, palm fruit and many others whose name I can no longer remember. You could hear the chickens that were still living nearby, but the less fortunate were hanging inside on hooks, ready to be prepared for dinner. There were also sides of pork and beef as well as fish from rivers and the sea. You could purchase drinks, juice, sodas, water, beer or meals prepared there. It was a huge market and there of course are many others like it in the city. I only saw one hydrant for getting water, and none of the vendors had water at the tables they rent. If you bought meat they would debone it or fillet it for you right there.
We saw other objects to purchase that were handmade items like brooms from plant life which is typically used and not for decoration. Enrique, the hotel owner and our host at the market purchases all his fruits, vegetables and meats at the market every Friday. So we are now eating at t he hotel what we saw and tried there. The fruits are very delicious. If you haven’t read my Facebook entry you missed Doug’s joke that made me laugh to tears. He said “I have more seeds inside me than an Earl May.” Incase your unfamiliar with Earl May it is a seed store in Iowa. I laughed so hard when he told me. It was the uncontrollable type of laughter that does the body good. We laugh and play much, but it is so necessary to have the laughter that helps us keep going. It is not all giggles when you have 5 kids and they are just getting to know each other, speak different languages and … It is hard to keep everyone happy all the time.
We swim every day…well the kids swim every day. I love swimming, but the water is very cool here. So I don’t really swim. Rosita has grown much more comfortable in the water and is no longer using any type of flotation device. Kimberlyn also loves the water, but always wears something floaty.
On Saturday we took and excursion to El Museo de Cana de Azucar. It is a sugar cane museum. It is similar to Living History Farms in Des Moines where you can see historical farms. It didn’t have any modern equipment. At the end we had some sugar cane juice and purchased some cane we haven’t yet tried. My guess is it is really sweet. Colombians love all things sweet. The tour was in Spanish so it didn’t hold a lot of interest for the kids, not even the Spanish speakers. The gardens were magnificent. We were unfortunately the final tour of the day so they were anxious to get rid of us. But I took many pictures as we were walking from one farm example to another. The car ride out there was about an hour long and was also interesting to since we travelled through smaller towns and we could see a different lifestyle. We have seen homeless digging through trash bags and eating whatever is available. This isn’t as common in the area we live in here, but more in other parts of town or in the smaller surrounding towns. It is common employment for people of all genders and ages to be selling snacks or fruit, or phone chargers or little birdies tied by string at the foot on the street corners, or to wash your car windows, whether you desire it or not expecting, payment at the end.
As far as the roads go, it is possible that they have the best drivers possible here. I believe this because I can’t imagine driving here. The roads don’t appear to have any lane designation, and if they did it wouldn’t matter. Traffic lights don’t seem to have much significance either. I believe the primary rule is whoever has the largest vehicle has right-of-way. Even in a city of 4 million people the streets are a mix of cars, trucks, buses, vans, motorcycles, scooters, animal driven vehicles as well as bicycles and some human pulled carts. We haven’t witnessed a crash or a tire with proper tread on them. The cars occasionally have paint transfer on them from rubbing, but not much damage. Cali does have mostly one-way streets; however nothing is straight, not even for one block! It would be so easy to get lost driving here. There is no time to adjust towards the inside or outside lanes of the street to change streets. So often times you will see turns to the right from the far left lane with lots of horn honking. I’m pretty sure it’s not for encouragement.
Yesterday was a trip to a restaurant. Enrique told us today the weather is not so good so we will go to a fine restaurant. So we put on the better clothes we brought and headed off with Enrique and his family as well as 5 other families. We did not know where this restaurant was, but it was a great ride out of the city and up into the mountains. We travelled for at least an hour, seeing pueblos built along the narrow roads into the mountain side. Along the way you could purchase anything from drinks and snacks to cell phone minutes, gas or goats. Speaking of gas, it cost 8,000 Colombian Pesos for one liter of diesel. That is about $4 per liter. Ouch, yet taxi’s are very inexpensive here. The restaurant served typical Colombian food and it was delicious. Doug shared with Rosita what is commonly thought of as the national dish, Bandeja Paisa. It seems more like this dish was invented by someone who thought “ I don’t know what to make for dinner, but I have red beans, rice, sausage, some ground beef, a piece of bacon and an egg to fry.” I had a typical soup, Salcochoco con Pollo. When they said with chicken they meant it. The soup part had a chicken liver, heart and foot in it. All that considered, it was still delicioso. Like the soup wasn’t enough, it also came with a chicken hindquarter, rice and avocado on the side. It was really good, but I didn’t eat any chicken toes. There was also a little playground and three caged parrots. The Spanish dad that is here to adopt tried to get the birds to talk, I told him that the parrots only spoke English. Always a joker, huh. Hacer un chiste (to make a joke). We had to learn these words quickly here to say we were only joking.
Today was another big day. For those who have adopted from Colombia, today was our Intergracion. The day where we get to say we want to continue as a family and begin the legal process of adoption. The girls, Doug and I, our translator and a Sociologist all discussed how our family is adjusting and functioning. Then we were asked and the girls were asked if we want to be a family. Estamos en acuedos (we agree we) want to be a family. So by tomorrow we will learn what court we have randomly been assigned to. This only matters because some courts are faster than others which means we get to come home sooner.
So if you would like to pray for us, I would ask for;
Continued bonding of our family, for the siblings to see the good in each other rather than to see how they are treated differently, for the desire to be obedient without having to be told repeatedly, and divine knowledge of English and Spanish (hey, pray big, right?)`. We are so thankful for safety and health, for this opportunity to grow our family and for the support of family and friends!

His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. Ephesains 1:5