Volunteer Visits

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 10^th and 11^th grade who elect to follow a trade course after finishing the 9^th 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

Cooking Time!

This past weekend I got to have my very first in-Colombia cooking experience. This involved making a sort of jam—or “Mermelade” with my two of my co-volunteers, Heidi and Katie, and Heidi’s host mom.  We made two different kinds—raspberry as well as “tomato de arbol.”

What is a tomato de arbol? Well, here’s a picture of Heidi with one:

 

And yes, it does translate directly to Tree Tomato. They actually are reminiscent of tomatoes in taste, and it’s many peoples’ favorite type of fruit from which to make juice. As I am a fan of the salty sort of tomato juice, preferably flavored with worcestershire sauce, pepper, lime juice…and potentially some vodka as well…this sugary watered down version of tomato juice is perhaps my least favorite fruit juice here. That being said, it does make some tasty jam!

Anyway, back to jam making. Turns out, making jam is super simple. All you do is blend the fruit with a little water, strain out the seeds, add an ungodly amount of sugar (what else is new, here), and simmer it until it starts to thicken. When it’s done cooking, you pour it into any container on hand and let cool, then refrigerate without a top (Not sure about the why on this part, but since my abuela puts covers on NOTHING I didn’t think to ask about that direction at the time).

In other news, I had my first areppa! My abuela made it for me last weekend and watched to ensure I devoured it all. Made of cornmeal with cheese, fried in butter, and then topped with over an inch of MORE grated cheese, it was the size of my plate and incredibly delicious…as well as probably enough food for the day.  However, as my days of enforced meals continue, it has become clear that my abuela has every intention to follow through on her thoroughly stated intention to “grow my stomach” so that I’m substantially bigger by the time I leave her house in three months. I’ve told her I can’t afford to buy a new wardrobe but alas, this provides only another source of humor for her…and so, onward.

Pictures of jam making:

                                  Heidi and her mom starting the raspberry cleaning process

                                       Katie and I doing some more raspberry cleaning (stems and leaves
                                       were still attached!)

                         Pureeing the fruit--blenders, or "liquifiers," as they're called here, are
                         indispensable here/are in every kitchen, used daily for making juice!

                                       Yes, we licked our spoons like 5 year olds

A few more pictures

As promised, a few pictures!

 

Outlet in the tree: for now I think that the guy who fries things for the kids in the mornings uses this the most. My favorite fried item from his is a "dedito," which means "little finger." They're basically mini croissants filled with cheese.

The outside of my house/my abuela's store. The awning says "fotocopias," and it's basically open all day and night whenever my abuelos are home. Even at 9:00 people will knock on the door  and ask for photocopies or pencils or candy, but it's mostly busy during the school day from 6:30am on.

 Inside of the tienda. The grating goes away in the mornings, but whenever they don't want to man the store they just shut the grate and people call out, "Buenos!" and my abuelos come answer.

 

Nifty looking bug-thing

View from the top....of the official peace corps office. It's complete open so there's a beautiful 360-degree view of the city and the Magdalena River.

Outside Colombo America's central campus. Turns out that  a lot of English speakers work here...two current volunteers will start working here when their service is up as well, teaching English to children and adults from all over Barranqulla and Colombia.

Rockstars

It’s bilingualism month in Barranquilla. What does that mean? It means that here in Barranquilla, the government, teachers, and students are celebrating their process of becoming a bilingual city. What does that mean to the Peace Corps volunteers, who have come here to teach English? It means we became total rockstars for a day. (And yes, Epic people, my use of rockstar is tongue-in-cheek :))

But actually, we sort of did (become rockstars, I mean). As a result of their high English scores and/or evaluations in general, ten “smaller” schools were awarded the right to have real live Americans, aka us Peace Corps volunteers, visit their schools for half a day this week. The catch, however, was that they then had to complete an application to get us, which only four did. Overall, this meant that on Thursday, groups of 5-7 of us were shipped out to four schools throughout the city to ostensibly visit and do English activities. In reality, this meant we showed up and were given basically a royal welcome.

My school, El Campito, was a primary and secondary school of approximately 1000 students. We walked in the doors of the complex and were immediately welcomed by smiling, singing children with signs and flags. Older students gave brief English introductions for some of the administration, and then we toured each classroom, where all children young and old sang us a resounding edition of a song made up predominantly of the phrase, “Good afternoon to you.”

In the schools, I was shocked to see that not only did many of the classrooms have numerous, strategically placed wall mounted fans, but air conditioning, too! They had a computer lab with internet, and in one room had a SmartBoard, which is an electronic sort of white board that costs thousands of dollars. School funding for anything beyond the basics is apparently predominantly driven by the individual principals of the schools, so this one must be fairly incredible. We heard later that next year a volunteer will be placed in this school…and let me tell you, that would not be an incredibly rough life!

After our tour, it was time to get down to business. We were told to do about an hour of activities with the students, so after being ceremoniously served agua de coco (see previous post for a descriptions), we introduced ourselves and where we were from and taught them songs. I may or may not have attempted to teach them the “Hook ‘em horns” sign but I’m not sure that it stuck…

Our part over, we retired to our places of honor at a banquet table, and the show commenced. I’m not sure where they got this talent, but everything we saw was literally X-factor or whatever TV-show-you-like caliber. A little girl sang us a BackStreet boys song in a sultry voice. A little boy sang the most adorable rendition of  Train’s “Soul Sister” I’ve ever heard…and then came the dancing. 

You may or may not know this, but Colombians are incredible dancers. We’re talking, everyone I’ve seen, even those who claim they “don’t dance,” has moves that pretty much anyone would kill for. 

During our visit, we saw this is a skill that comes, well, perhaps indecently early. 

The first dancer who performed for us was this tiny little girl, maybe eight. She was wearing a black and purple lycra outfit and with her gorgeous long hair and her face painted like a doll’s, she was one of the most beautiful little girls I’ve ever seen. After walking out to the middle of the floor and giving us an angelic smile, she proceeded to plant her legs and bend down so that her rear, covered in a little ruffled bunch of crepe, was pointed provocatively up at our table. The male volunteer in our group was more than a little astounded. This, however, was soon to be the least of his discomforts; when the music started, the girl proceeded to dance using professional-seeming music-video-esque moves to incredibly sexy American songs. We’re talking everything from Brittney Spears to a remix of “I’m Too Sexy” to Rihanna to who knows what else. For a good 15 minutes at least, she ground and shimmied and shook and tossed her hair in front of not only us, but a roomful of high school students, male and female, who all watched avidly. And she did this all with the most beatific smile on her face. I have nooo idea what those choreography sessions are like, but I’m not sure they would be more disturbing if it were a male or a woman teaching her those moves!

The finale was a large dance group of middle-high school girls (and just a few guys). The girls were dressed in sparkly bras and red lycra and did an incredible dance that, in addition to everything else, included a more than generous amount of booty shaking and pre-pubescent breast shimmying approximately two inches away from our vantage point. And, to top the day off, we were pulled into this swirling crowd of dancers to show off how truly terrible gringas are at dancing.

That night we walked an hour and a half home through city streets while heat lightening played to the south and children shot marbles by the sidewalks. We are, of course, not rockstars. And these children who welcomed us so enthusiastically will most likely not beam when we present them with homework. But to see how our presence is valued by the country, by the schools, by the teachers and students as well…well, maybe in the next few years we’ll have a chance to earn the welcome we received this week.

Sound

When I signed up for the Peace Corps, I prepared myself for lots of “hardships.” Things like cold showers, living out of a backpack, having close to no income, gastric difficulties, etc. My situation in Barranquilla promises most, if not all of these things. What I certainly did not expect, however, was the issue of crazy, ridiculous sound.

All throughout the city, my barrio included, corner stores of all different types play music at huge decibels, often competing with stores directly across from them who are playing some other music. (My personal favorite is the stores who offer phones on which you can pay to make international calls. They chain these phones to tables…which are stationed DIRECTLY in front of blaring speakers. Needless to say, I’ve never seen anyone actually using them). I’ve seen mothers drinking a beer while breastfeeding small children next to these speakers on the weekends (So for any scientists out there, might be a great case study of nature versus nurture…?). But anyway. This music is usually a source of amusement, or at least bemusement, especially on weekends. 

However, on a fairly regular basis we get the mobile speaker treatment.

I checked and there is no special word for these people in Spanish (besides idiotas, or other such names,) but in this city there are some people here whose favorite pastime is to outfit cars with the most powerful sound systems I’ve ever seen/heard up close. We’re talking, they fill an entire car trunk with speaker equipment, and then cruise the neighborhoods with the music turned up, literally setting off car alarms in their wake. 

One night this week a car pulled up on our block and parked. Keeping to the norm of the city humor here, the car was labeled “Policia.” The occupants proceeded to play on repeat some song whose reverberating bass and high pitched electronic squeals made the corner store speakers seem entirely reasonable—discreet, if you will. Meanwhile, the dishes were rattling on the shelves and the entire house vibrated!

In keeping with true grandparent style, my abuela proceeded to call the police, during which conversation my favorite line included “Es una scandalosa horrible!!”

Of course, the best part is that the police can’t actually do anything about this. If they come, they can simply ask the people to move…no citations, fines, etc. So without exception the people stay, in our case playing this song for TWO HOURS STRAIGHT. During the second hour of this Yo Me Llama came on (the show reminiscent of American Idol), which, though still fuming about the outside noise situation, my host-grandparents eagerly watched…at full volume…

Needless to say, my head was rattling by the time I retired for the night.