I feel for Columbia; pinched between Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez, with both of them funding terrorist guerilla units within your borders.... iiiick.
My sister spent two years in Japan teaching English/American culture to young Japanese students. She didn't speak any Japanese when she went over. HF, as a linguist I'm sure you can appreciate the ridiculousness of that task; it's a crazy, massive set of alphabets with a foreign set of grammar rules, and entonation matters a lot. And talk about a culture shock!! She wasn't in a major city with any Western influence/accomodations.
One of her major schticks would be teaching classrooms about her family. I was 14/15 at the time, and she identified me as 'Adam, the baseball player.' Baseball burns so strongly in those people it makes the 1950's American fervor look disinterested by comparison. She told me I had a fanclub of 13-year old Japanese girls over there. Indeed, maybe a dozen students sent her letters after she returned to America (in horribly disfigured English... but who can blame them)... all the girls had inquiries about me. Tip; if you ever find yourself at a bar in Japan, and you're looking to score, just mention baseball... you're in.
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