Posting

Ding.
The sound pulled me from a deep sleep. My hand fumbled for the phone.
Midnight.
My brain slowly focused.
Who would be texting me at midnight?
My husband.
"U awake?"
Thinking.
"Umm. Now I am."
The phone rings.
"I just received my placement for next year! Do you want to know what it is?"
I am still trying to come out of the deep fog of sleep realizing that no matter how I answer, that place won't be revisited tonight.
"No, call back in the morning so you can tell the kids and me together."
"OK."
Ding.
Didn't I just fall back to sleep 10 minutes ago?
6:00 a.m.
"Up yet?"
"Working on it."
This time I get out of bed, quickly gather the kids and turn on Skype. The information we have been waiting for the last 23 days is about to be revealed to us. "Where will we be moving in July?"
His face pops up and he is beaming.
"Kids, do you want to know where we are going?"
Silence
"Bogota, Columbia!"
My son cracks a smile. The girls shift nervously. None of us know how to react. We are still half asleep. Final exams are today before Thanksgiving Break. It hasn't sunk in yet.
We hang up.
We sit at the table with bowls of cereal in front of us. I pull out my phone. Wikipedia will help us - it always has the answers. "Wow, look at the city kids. 8 million people. It's high up - 8,000 ft. It rains - a lot. Look at that stadium. It's for bull fighting. Oh, and there's a picture of the soccer stadium. They have 3 professional teams! 70 degrees every day - all year long. This is weird. It's so close to the equator that it's dark out by 6:30 p.m. every day. Oh, and it's the same time zone as at home - won't that be easy!"
I've been on the internet quiet a bit today and I still don't really know what to expect of this city. If we had gotten Cairo I would be thinking about Pyramids. In Amman we would be diving in the Mediterranean Sea. Vienna has Europe at its door step. We put Bogota on the list because our son wanted a Spanish speaking country and from everything I've read we will definitely need to speak Spanish to survive. Maybe it's best to go into a new country this way, with few preconceived ideas. Bogota holds a mystery for our family just waiting to be discovered.