This past week was Volunteer Site Visit week, which meant that finally, on our third week in-country, we got a taste of what our job will, in reality, entail. We were split into pairs and assigned a volunteer to shadow for a day. After a ridiculous amount of drama last Friday, we learned whether we would be traveling to a volunteer in Santa Marta, Cartagena, or remaining in good ole’ Barranquilla. No one was hurt or killed in the process, and when it all shook out, I was lucky enough to be in a traveling group—off to Cartagena I went!
After hearing only fabulous things about this hot, Spanish colonial ex-slave-trade-destination port city, eight excited volunteer trainees filled our “Puerto-a-Puerto” (translates to Door-to-Door, a taxi-like mini van that travels between cities on the coast and is the only approved intra-city transport for US government workers of any sort) to the brim.
The trip, during which we traveled mostly by highway through ramshackle country towns, was extended by an hour or so due to detour caused by a town near Cartagena blocking the roads in protest of their local election results. Sadly, we didn’t get to see this interesting development in person. After the last bumpy half-hour of pitted dirt road, we reached Cartagena. In these first views, its reputation did not disappoint—the road went straight along the beaches, and we drove right to the walled city.
Cartagena is one of the biggest destination spots for Colombian travelers and other tourists, and is famous for its walled city—literally, the beautiful downtown is literally encircled by an old stone wall. Inside these walls are narrow, European-style streets lined with colorful, balcony-laden buildings. Horses and carriages mingled with cars and the many tourists out for jaunts. See pictures below!
We stayed in a hotel nearby, and much as my host-abuelas are wonderful people, it was fairly awesome to be staying with a fellow trainee rather than my host family/be able to eat meals without being yelled at for not finishing my plate.
Our afternoon and evening of sight-seeing over, the next day was all about our site visits. Adam and I went to a “Normal” school. Unlike most schools the Peace Corps is working in here, this is sort of the equivalent of a vocational school. It teaches specified subjects, including English, to students in 10th and 11th grade who elect to follow a trade course after finishing the 9th grade, their last mandatory year of public education. Our volunteer, Micah, mostly taught students who were also learning petro-chemical engineering—classes that took up about 12 hours of their day every day of the week.
Although the initial idea had been for us to be able to observe our volunteers and how they co-taught in a classroom, following true Peace Corps “who-knows” attitude, Adam and I ended up being the lesson of the day…aka sitting with groups of students while they asked us every question from “What is your favorite color” to “What do you do in the Peace Corps,”—and I quote, “Have you ever loved a man so much it made you cry?”
For the most part, their English was rough and often hard to decipher, and throughout the time we were there I didn’t hear the Colombian teacher speak to them in a word of English. Overall, it was great to see the school, but I learned very little about what a typical placement might be—because this school has so few English teachers and has resources like computers and internet and air conditioning and a “decent” teacher, more likely than not they won’t actually be placing one of us in that school for the next two years.
Back at the Peace Corps office “processing” our visits, it was interesting to hear a range of experiences. Many volunteers had struggled in some way or another at their sites—whether it was from complete lack of classroom organization, to resistance from the teachers, to apathy from students and teachers alike—and we all became a little more apprehensive after seeing these challenges first hand. And yet, volunteers are doing amazing projects as well—everything from organizing libraries, to hosting English camps, to holding English learning competition days. So many good ideas and project starts for so many of us, if we end up at some of these schools!
With field practicum—teaching in actual classrooms in Barranquilla—starting this coming week, things have started to ramp up. From teaching practice lessons to beginning our first rounds of evaluations, every day brings us closer to finding out where we’ll be for the next two years, and we’re officially done with the first quarter of our training!
Some pictures of Cartagena:
In the square
Standing on the wall, view of the modern part of the city
Still standing on the wall, view of the inner, colonial part of the city
Clock tower at night
Ship at the port
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