First day helping

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The day began early again at 6am thanks to the jetlag. My body clock has been kept at a good pace because of it and i hope to maintain it. Today was the first day I went with some of the other volunteers to one of the projects, in this case, being a mother teresa home for elderly women. This time there was 5 of us all together, which i am told is pretty unusual because the the crowd usually disperses to different projects. We got there by taxi and it was in a fairly shady part of town. Very steep, narrow uphill road with and garbage on either side of the road with occasional suspicious looking people. I was told that its not a place to ever visit at night. Strangely enough, it is 1 street over from a nice part of town which has many restaurants and hotels. The strong police presence is what keeps everyone in check but a wrong turn could become a problematic very quickly.

The building was wrapped in very high walls (5 meters) which had broken bottles stuck along its tops as a substitute for barbed wire. After passing a short courtyard, the inside was consistent of tight halls which ascended up 4 floors with ramps (lots of the ladies were in wheel chairs) branching out into the different rooms and sections of the compound. The walls were heavily plastered with images of mother teresa and different prayers in spanish. The sleeping areas were like those of a summer or concentration camp with about a dozen beds laid out in rows. On the top level, there was a corrugated plastic roof over an open area used to do laundry and to dry clothes. The roof was quite high and there were bars running along it where clothes hung to dry on coat hangers. To get the clothes up and down from these bars, one had to use a 2 meter stick with a hook on it to bring them up and down. The expansive view from that area was that of a struggling, developing city with certain buildings being brand new while other surrounding areas were borderline slum-like. It was, none the less: glorious.

Our task for that day was to help organize lunch for the ladies. There were about 30 - 40 ladies all pretty old, many immobile, some a little insane, most with few if any teeth. We spent a little time with them, smiling, holding their hands, nodding and saying yes to whatever they said if they did speak. I could not make out what they were talking about and even some of the other people who have a good grasp of spanish could not understand much of what they said. We then transported the ladies up the ramps to the dinning level which was a medium sized room connected to a kitchen and an outdoor area. We served them their lunch, which the nuns had already cooked (usually there is 5 of them running the whole operation), cleaned the dishes and the dinning hall. Lunch included chicken soup containing lots of chicken heads and feet (which everyone seemed to enjoy!), potatoes with chicken legs, and some sweet nectar like ooze. i don't think i would eat that food were my life to depend on it but they seemed to enjoy it. Afterwards, we moved all of them to one of the sitting areas where there was a small radio playing music and spent some time with them. The ladies were in good spirits and there was lots of smiling, chatting, even some dancing. It seems they were not used to having so many people over and loved the company but I'm told its usually pretty dull after lunch and they are in a vegetative state. One lady with a charmingly thick mustache tried to convert me to Catholicism until she found out i was russian then accused me of being a godless communist. It was all in good fun and I'm told she has not laughed this much before.

We left at around noon time and headed back to the apartment for some lunch. Lunch was cooked by the housekeeping lady who does breakfast and lunch 5 days a week and featured a chicken soup and fried chicken. I think they love their chicken here...

After lunch I went for a walk with a couple of the other volunteers and had some beers in a convenience store. They sell them there and have a couple of tables, so why not?

Spent the evening watching some documentaries and one of the guys, who is a cook, made coconut pesto. It was delicious!

I didnt take any photos today as i left my camera at home. The area didnt seem photographer friendly, but i think i can manage next time and some of the other volunteers had their smaller ones with them. Stay tuned.

Tomorrow I head to Soacha, which a reservation for displaced peoples on the outskirts of the city where the school is located. I expect it to be quite and experience and will write about it soon..

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