Camping with the Scouts

This past weekend, I got to do something pretty exciting. I got to…go camping! For the last month, I’ve worked with Scouts de Colombia as an honorary dirigente – a leader. I have a few students in the troupe who found out I did scouts growing up, and the troupe has since accepted me as their international friend.

Scouts here is much more like Boy Scouts back home (a thing I can attest to due to my countless hours attending my bro’s Scouting events…which were numerous, since he made it straight up to Eagle. Good thing they at least did Pinewood Derbies to keep things interesting!) 

Troupe from Cartagena checking out "El Joe,"
our giant statue of famed Salsa singer Joe Arroyo

Anyway. Scouts here is mixed, boys as well as girls. We meet for four hours once a week and do different sorts of ceremonies and plan events. This past weekend, we had an "integration” with a group from Cartagena. Our oldest scouts, the Rovers, planned the event. It was targeted for the “Caminantes,” or Scouts aged 15-18.

So, on Saturday morning I met up with the troupe leader and the 8 Caminantes from Cartagena. Caminante means “Walker,” and off we went for the next 5 hours through the city with all our scouting stuff for a walking tour of Barranquilla! Nothing like hauling tents and potable water for two days through midday Barranquilla heat, in uniform…but it was also pretty adorable. Fueled by my excitement of being with folks who LIKED walking, I made it through…although I turned bien roja by the end of the day…

"Arming" the campsite

Finally we met up with all the Barranquilla folks and boarded the bus out to the finca.  The bus being a public one, packed from top to bottom, didn’t stop the excited teens from shouting full-voice just about every Scout song in Spanish that has ever come into existence…so that was fun. Arriving at our corner of the road, we headed down the 2km dirt trocha to the campsite.

The finca where we camped was a small plot of land out near Sabanalarga, belongs to the grandparents of some scouts, with mango trees and yucca plants. Pitching our tents among mango trees during mango season came with the added excitement of a day and night punctuated with the wsssshhhfomp of ripe falling mangoes but fortunately no incidents occurred!

"Arranca La Yucca":
pull the human yucca plant from the tree!

The afternoon and night were full of games, including a capture-the-flag-paint-water-balloon-ball event that ended with myself and a few others hurling bags of paint at a row of Caminantes execution style,

Making use of the extra water-paint-bags:

The pueblo-dwellers found us pretty entertaining

a late-night hike to the nearby pueblo where we played more games in the plaza, and a midnight bonfire, constructed in perfect log-cabin style. I fell asleep around 1:30am by the dying bonfire to the sound of cicadas droning, and an hour or so later awoke to move into our tent. Six am, the scout leader blew the whistle for morning warm-up exercises, then we deep fried arepas, packed up, and headed out.

Scout leader Ramiro drinking his morning coffee

 Despite the impressive vocalization abilities of the Scouts, I still heard toads at midnight, cicadas

through the evening and night, the wind in the trees, and saw stars. When the Scouts sang me a birthday song and presented me with a Colombian kerchief, I made a speech and hold them how important they were to me, as my international family.

 It couldn’t have been more true. Nothing like good people, good nature, and a good few hours of sleep to make a weekend Scout camping trip a beautiful thing.

Friends, Young and Old

Over on GoGirl:

Some thoughts about how my concepts of friendships and "hanging out" have changed, 17 months into my Peace Corps service.

http://www.travelgogirl.com/2013/05/16/friends-young-and-old/

Life, Liberty, and Happiness

Hello there, friends. It’s been a bit of a time. The long story short: life has been good.

The slightly longer story, list style:

In the past few weeks (in addition to work, which is chugging along) I have

·         Visited Santa Marta

·         Become an honorary “Scout de Colombia”

·         Moved

·         Joined a gym

The elaborated story –

Santa Marta:

Almost a month ago, I was invited to go to Santa Marta by the family who were my neighbors and another volunteer’s family during training (invitation of the “come and join!” rather than the “come and we pay!” kind). I eagerly accepted. Weeks went by and I heard nothing, so I assumed the normal, we-invited-you-because-we-like-you-but-didn’t-plan-to-follow-up sort of invitation. Then, two days before the weekend, I get a call. “Emily, what days are you joining us this weekend?”

Oh. They meant it!

I canceled my (not-too-existent) alternative plans and headed down to Santa Marta. We visited the beautiful Playa de los Muertos (Beach of the Dead) aka Playa Cristal. It’s a part of Parque Tayrona that can be reached by boat, which we did along with our lovely tour group. We swam, relaxed in our chairs, and ate the pescado sudadoso or “sweated fish” the family had packed as a picnic lunch (alongside rice, yucca, and patacones.) And drank a huge thermos-ful of SunTea, the local “Nestea” (pronounced soontee).

Some pictures:

 

 



Scouts de Colombia:

A few girls in my one of my eighth grade classes were ecstatic to learn that I was a girl scout, growing up. They invited me to come to their scout meetings, here. (How do you say Scout in Spanish? For phonetic reasons (“s’s” before consonants are given an “eh” push-off), “Eh-scout”!)

Scouts here are mixed boys and girls. There appear to be more similarities to the Boyscouts of America than the Girlscouts…which I am aware of due to years of enforced attendance to my brother’s boy scout ceremonies.  Their official patch is basically the same as the boy scouts, and they also attend international scout jamborees. They also have a lot of rituals, including lots of saluting and shouting at the beginning, and do many wonderful leadership activities. The categories of Scout are by ages: Lobato, Caminante, Scout, and Rover, from ages tiny to 25. They also go camping! In tents! I’ve been invited to attend a camping event in a few weekends. I’ll keep you posted :)

Last weekend was Dia del Niño, which involves celebrating the existence of children through energetic displays of child-love such as: activities in all the local malls, free candy given out at school, debuts of lion cubs at the local zoo, and neighborhood events where there are free treats (for the parent and/or child, whomever gets there first), an “animator” who encourages the children to jump and yell, lots of loud music, burlap sack races, cheerleading performances, etc.

My Scout Troop helped out at the neighborhood event at the park where we hold meetings. As an honorary “dirigente”, or, Scout Leader, I helped oversee the members as they secured exits, gave directions, and held an exhibition of scouting gear for the local children. I’ll just say – these kids are really wonderful kids.

Afterwards, we trekked to a favorite fast food place for a late dinner called “Tronco ‘e Sabor” – which translates roughly to, “A Super-lot of Flavor” and got the biggest plates of salchipapa-esque food I’ve ever seen. Every meat imaginable chopped up with French fries, bollo, lettuce, sauces, French-fry-onion pieces, topped with cheese and three ribs. Yeah. It was a good day and night.

My move:

So. For the last year y pico, I’ve lived with a family of 10, 2-3 chihauhuas, a parrot, 3 turtles, a partridge, and a pear tree. With always something going on at every hour of the night and day—picos blaring, family running in and out of the house, babies everywhere, food getting fried willy-nilly, and generous, kind, super-attentive host moms, the experience was enlightening, challenging, tumultuous, and one-of-a-kind.

Recently, a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer had to return home for health reasons. The house he left belonged to a family I lived near during training – the very same family who I joined in Santa Marta. I was ready for a different sort of living experience, and when the host mom invited me to take the former volunteer’s place in her household, I accepted happily. The family is childless, the mom is a teacher and the dad is a chef. I have unlimited access to the kitchen – and I’m making my own food(!) There are times when I am alone in the house.

We go to bed by 9:00 (host mom and I both have to be at work super early) My room has a window.

…basically, it’s wonderful in every respect.

 

Gym:

This year, I promised myself I’d avoid and/or actively take action against things that are challenging, that I actually can change. Including things in the “luxury” category. For example: one thing that’s been really tough is a lack of aerobic exercise. Although I bought an elliptical, after about 8 months it was broken more often than not. My new house is a block and a half from a local gym of the “professional” sort (Barranquilla’s gyms range from garages outfitted with weights where you can pay 1 or 2 mil by the hour, to super fancy gyms that are over 300 mil a month). This gym isn’t a cheap one, but it’s affordable and, although heaven knows I never expected a gym to factor into my Peace Corps service, I’m loving it.

…So basically what I’m saying is that, this month has brought a lot of good change. For the first time in a long time, I am happy in many aspects of my life…at the same time! Challenges come and they go, but having exciting experiences and peace in my home life is making all the difference. Here’s to a wonderful May!