Day 5

Canceled :(..........  Look out for day 6 on Monday

ULTIMATE!

We mixed it up today and instead of playing softball we played Ultimate frisbee!  The girls got a kick out of this and it was a good change of pace.  We ended the sports portion of the day with a furthest throw contest and my neighbor, who I have practiced frisbee with before, won by more than a few feet.  So she made her street--no street names here-- really proud!  Before the sports portion of the day we had a really good talk with the girls about health and exercise.  At one point the girls were giving us examples of healthy and non-healthy foods.  A few of the girls thought that fried fish and fried bananas were healthy food and so we had the difficult task of  explaining why they were not.  This was the first time this week where we could immediately see the girls starting to change the way they were thinking about a topic.

Best day of Little Lebowski's Peri-Urban achievers camp to date-- I hope to say this at least three more times over the next six days of camp.  

Outfit of the day:  A girl showed up to camp with what can only be described as a wedding dress

Dance of the day: Jump on it (Fresh Price of Bel-Air)

Feelin' Good About Ourselves Now

More girls showed up today for a pretty sweet workshop on self-esteem and an exquisite Macarena lesson.  After defining self-esteem, the girls were handed a sheet of paper as we came by and taped the paper to their backs (see picture).  They were then instructed to go around the room and write positive/encouraging comments on each others backs.  Finally, in true Peace Corps fashion we processed how we felt after reading the endearing comments.  Then it was off the the beach for some softball.  Egg toss was brought back by popular demand in addition to throwing relays and the always funny dizzy bat relay--the girls ran to a baseball bat and then spun around three times before wobbling back to tag their teammate.

Dance of the Day: The Macarena

Quote of the day: I was trying to get a group of girls to start the next activity as a sassy fourth grader told me, "Leave me here and let me finish my ice pop"

Some of the girls participating in the self-esteem building activity

 

Less Might Just be More

To start the day I got a call from my community counterpart that is helping out at Little Lebowski's Peri-Urban Achievers camp.  She told me she was going to be late because she had a medical appointment (she never came) and had all of the materials we were going to use for the day.  However,  now that I have been in the Peace Corps for a year I am somewhat of a self proclaimed magician when it comes to pulling ice breakers and activities out of thin air.  So not to worry, my friend and I put on a solid workshop.  However, I was a bit shocked, and at first a little upset, that only about a third of the girls showed up from the first day.  Nevertheless, I feel that the day was a lot more successful as we got to work one on one with the majority of the girls.  Not to mention they could not get enough of the egg toss game we played!

Dance of the Day: The Robot

Quote of the Day:  After being in the sun for a bit, a girl said, "I am burning up and you Gringos don't burn like us Black people"      

Little Lebowski's Peri-Urban Achievers Camp

A PC volunteer friend of mine (working in Barranquilla),  a community member, a few high school students, and myself are starting a two week leadership/softball camp for the girls of 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade in La Boquilla.  There will be a workshop followed by softball skill stations in the morning.  Then the girls will return home for a Costeño lunch break, three hours.  We will then return to the beach at 3:00, to a sun that has hopefully set a little bit, and play an actual game.  My goal is to write 10 blogs over the next 14 days; A blog per day of the camp.  These blogs will be short and highlight a cool workshop activity, a funny event, or some of the priceless quotes that these hilarious girls have already said.    

Day 1

In addition to the workshop my friend and I decided that we better teach these girls a dance a day.  So todays task was the Chicken Dance.  After finding out that there was no internet --I should have known-- we had no choice but to sing/hum the song while demonstrating the dance.  And as you can imagine the girls had a field day and the laughter was plentiful.  However, after they calmed down a bit and learned the moves, they all danced the Chicken Dance like I thought only a true Gringo could.

Getting Schooled by Women

One of the highlights of my service thus far has been working with a local NGO, FHES.  I was approached by the NGO when I first arrived in La Boquilla and eagerly took the opportunity to HELP teach english.  However, guess what?.......‘help’ wasn’t the word that they were looking for.  I believe the correct word was TEACH.  So after arriving to my first class totally prepared to HELP and unprepared to TEACH, I was told I had three hours and the class was mine.  So after the lady kindly introduced me she saw herself out of the room and I was thrown to the 13 Boquilleras.  At this point I felt like I was standing center stage and there was a spotlight shining right on my face, and I recall sweating like that was the case.  So, I did what any PCV would do and just fought through it to survive until the next meeting, which I told myself would be much better.  

Now after a year later, and many better meetings, we meet two to three times a week and the class has turned into more than just an English class.  We teach each other about music, food, religion, and these ladies always have plenty of La Boquilla gossip.  A few of the highlights so far have been learning to dance Chapeta, possibly against my will, becoming an official taste tester for food that is often brought to class, learning how to make rosary necklaces, and most recently how to shop at a ‘flea market.’     

During a greatly planned food lesson, if I do say so myself, one of the girls asked (in english) to use the bathroom.  I said yes and didn’t think twice about it.  However, when she came back 15 minutes later with a handful of clothes I didn’t know what was going on.  Then before I could ask Gerledys what she eats for breakfast, the rest of the ladies left the room and charged at full steam down the stairs to the lady with a bunch of clothes laid out, in no particular order, on the ground.  For the next hour I observed and learned how to properly navigate a pop up flea market in La Boquilla.  These women are something else!   

  

Angeles Somos, One Fine Day

Getting started right outside of school

 As I checked my Facebook on the night of Halloween (celebrated here in Colombia, but not with an evangelical family) I found a message from one of my co-teachers.  It read, 

“Mike, Tomorrow we have an activity called "Tintililillo" in school:, no classes. But you will be with us, ok. We'll do a "Sancocho"

I quickly did some research by asking my host mom what “Tintilillo” was and she told me that it is part of the celebration for Angeles Somos.  This holiday is celebrated here in La Boquilla and Cartagena on November 1st.  The students go from house to house in the morning asking for fruits and vegetables and sing a little song while banging on pots and pans.  The ingredients that are collected are then brought to the school for the Sancocho.

What is a Sancocho you might ask?  A Sancocho is a big soup that can be filled with anything from corn on the cob, bananas, potatoes, yucca, peppers, chicken, ribs, and much more.  However,  not all of the students did their early morning sining and thus came to school with nothing.  So some quick thinking teachers told them they to pay a few hundred pesos (25 cents) if they wanted to eat.  

When all the ingredients and money were collected the teachers then came up with a list of what they were still missing.  As two teachers headed to the store to pick up the rest of the ingredients on a moto, the rest of us went outside to enjoy the humidity and if it weren’t bad enough, start a fire for the soup.  My counterpart kept saying how Sancocho was her favorite food and that it is much better when cooked on a open fire.  So we split up and collected some kindling and threw some egg cartons on the fire to really get it going.  As if I weren't drenched in sweat already... 

As the teachers started cutting up the veggies they sat me down in a plastic chair in the shade because I guess it was obvious I didn’t know what I was doing or I looked like I was going to pass out from the heat.  Meanwhile I bet you are wondering where all of the students are at this point...well at least you are now.  And to answer that question, some were playing soccer in the classrooms, others were dancing champeta and reggaeton, and some even found drums and started playing their own music.  So as you can imagine the bulla (see costeño dictionary) level was very very high.  

We finally found a pot that would serve 110 teachers and students and began throwing all of the veggies and meat into the iron vat-- I am sure there was a strategy, I am just not aware of it.  Then we SAT.  I mean we really just chatted, listened to the kids play drums, and occasionally checked the soup for the next FOUR hours.  If you know me, you know I can’t sit still for long, but for some reason this time was different.  Maybe it was the student generated funky drum beats or the thirst quenching apple soda, but I just sat there chatted away for longer than I can ever think of.

The clock struck 6:00, six hours after I arrived at school, and the soup was finally approved by my counterpart as, “delicious” and we dug in.  Go figure a soup that takes six hours to make is a little tastier that my FAMOUS George Foreman grilled chicken.   

Some students lining up early for their bowl 

Finished product

My soup