Blogs from Tolima, Colombia, South America - page 2

A lot of events go on here for Christmas, but the first one I will tell you about is the lunch we provided for the kids and crackheads of the San Jose neighborhood, aka the Danger Zone. Yamile really wanted to do something for all the crackheads for Christmas, and she came up with providing them lunch the Friday before Christmas. Nicklas had just returned from a week in Cali to spend Christmas with us, and it was Ondrej’s (pronounced Andres’) last morning with us in Ibauge. We set off over to the barrio of San Jose in the morning, in order to get the big meal started for the estimated 100 people. There were already some older ladies there, I guess from the neighborhood, that pretty much had a hold on all of the cooking. ... read more

San Jose is an extremely poor neighborhood located in the suburbs of Ibague. It’s filled with dirty crack addicts, extremely poor people, trash-lined streets, and tiny, uncompleted shacks made mainly of brick with tin roofs. It also hosts one of the centers we may go volunteer at. Its location is not even a ten-minute walk away from my home, and it is here that an entire dark world lives and breathes. To get there, volunteers may not go alone. Usually Yamile, an amazing 33 year-old Coordinator of the San Jose location, will come pick you up to walk you over. I say “usually” because in one instance, they sent big black Dave there with two young girls who attend the center in order to accompany him as protection. When I first got here and heard of ... read more

Here are some fun facts I’ve learned so far about Colombia: • Your home doubles as a garage. I still can’t get over this one. I was sitting out front with the kids when all of the sudden, my neighbor across the street opened his front wall of his house up! Apparently, it turns into a big swinging garage door, which was also surprising. He then proceeded to take his car out of his kitchen. KIT-CHEN. You could see everything; his kitchen, his living room, and his car taking up the entire kitchen, while making the living room much smaller. My mouth must have hit the floor. Naturally, I had to share this spectacle, so I got Dave’s attention. But he already knew about this one and informed me that almost everyone keeps their car or ... read more

Las Despedidas I'm writing this entry smelly and filthy dirty. Water here goes and comes without warning. At first I thought no problem, I dealt with that in Istanbul (well it was very rare, but still happened nonetheless). But here, it's a bit different! If it rains, it most definitely goes, and it has been raining quite a bit! Thank God you can at least dump a bucket of water in the toilet and the pressure will magically make it flush! Never thought I'd say this but give me back my cold shower! Cross your fingers for us that the water will come back on today, so we can wash off the sweat and mud from yesterday's frightening hike up the mountain, (I'll skip the other stories and go straight to that story for the next ... read more

I am actually writing another blog entry on my time volunteering but I had to post this first. Well it finally happened and just 2 weeks after reading it on another blog. So on Monday afternoons I help teach English to a group of police cadets ages 10-18 years. I just assist the girl who teaches the class who is another volunteer here at Manos Amigas. She is actually very good at teaching and very good with kids. She has just one minor flaw. She is from England and she doesn't know how to spell and uses funny made up words. Lorrie driver?? Color spelled with the letter "u"?? The letter "z" pronounced as zed?? WTF? Actually I could do a whole post on those Brits and Aussies and maybe I will. Although the Aussies ... read more