first day

Well, today was my first day at work. It was very long but also very positive. I am working in the Bogotá office of Acciòn Social. Today was spent in a meeting with all the office directors of Accion Social Bogotá and Cundinamarca (the department of Bogotá), the project directors, and the other three international trainees and one national trainee.

We went through the schedule and made some plans and clarifications. We then met everyone in the office briefly and went to a video conference of all the 35 accion social offices around Colombia. It was in all honesty a boring presentation, but it was interesting to hear the different accents and see the diversity that exists in Colombia.

After this, we went to lunch at our boss/co-worker’s house. We (Gopikrishna and I) are working with really nice girls. They are 28 and 25 respectively, which is close enough to understand one another. They are getting to practice their English with Gopi because he doesn’t speak hardly any Spanish. I play translator a lot of the time, which I can’t decide if it’s a good or a bad thing.

Either way, I spent the afternoon translating a meeting with the director of IS about the processes displaced people go through. They are pretty complicated, but also very interesting. After work, I returned home by successfully navigating the mass transit system called thetransmilenio!!

Tomorrow we will get our national ID cards, and this weekend, I’m going to a conference in Manizles (a small city in the coffee region).

Hasta pronto