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Saturday, May 10, 2008
Onto Bogota
Today is our last day in Medellin… tonight we fly onto Bogota where we will stay with Sofia and Alejo, in the house where Manuel used to live as a kid.
We’ve wrapped up the volunteer work, as you’ve probably read in the other postings this has been an amazing experience, and time has just flown by.
I passed my final Spanish test with a 4.6 (out of 5.. not bad eh!) and am now in the phase that my brain is starting to tune to Spanish before Japanese. When the kids ask me how to say something in Japanese I have a black out. haha.
Last weekend was a long weekend with holidays on Thursday and Monday. We joined Andres and Adriana and some of her family to the finca of a friend, in Guarne. Guarne is a small town about a 45-minute drive from Medellin. We had a relaxing stay, and the house and landscape were incredibly beautiful. Photos to follow…
Ah, and I finally got my chance to ride a horse for the very first time! I was a natural talent for the first 10 meters until the horse decided to take off and I almost got launched off his back. Thankfully I managed to stay seated though. Next time I’ll opt for a slow tred-only lesson first. 
Also last week Manuel had his eyes lasered. Not LASIK but a slightly different technique, because his corneas are on the thin end. All went well and Manuel’s eyes are healing as should, and as hoped for. After all: eye laser operation was invented and developed in this country!
Thursday, May 08, 2008
Saciar - the Beginning of Something Beautiful
About nine years ago a man died. During his funeral, many people unknown to the grieving family of the deceased began arriving to offer their condolences. When asked how they knew the deceased, they all told similar stories of how this man had helped them overcome adversity by providing their families with food, clothing or helping pay for the education of their children.
The man at the center of this story was the father of Mrs. Silvia Llano Mesa, the current Manager of Fundacion Saciar, a foodbank in Medellin, Colombia.
Mrs. Llano Mesa’s family had no idea that their father had been helping all of these people until the day of his funeral. They decided to continue their father’s legacy by establishing the foundation. Today, Saciar provides 650 organizations in and around Medellin with food, clothes and medicines for distribution among the neediest people. They also established 12 soup kitchens where 2000 kids daily receive a nutritious breakfast and lunch.
Currently Saciar has 25 fulltime employees and 120 volunteers to assist run this wonderful organization with the task of helping the most vulnerable people.
We were fortunate to be able to volunteer here for the past 5 weeks, and get to know the Saciar “family” a little. A very rewarding and gratifying experience. Working with the kids was a lot of fun. Today, our last day, the staff at Saciar showed us a heart-warming letter they received from one of the children, thanking everybody at the organization--including us, ‘working with paper’ (origami)! ...What a great way to wrap up our mission here, and knowing that our visits were well received.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Hablo español!
All is muy, muy bien here in Colombia. I’m loving it. Started my Spanish course last week and am loving that too. I did an entry test and was allowed to skip level 1. The course is indeed intense: in one lesson (4 hours a day, from 8 am to 12pm) we’re covering content that’s normally done in 3 lessons. It’s going well though. There are only two more students in my class: Samantha from the UK and Derek from Canada. They’re up to level, which is lucky for me because I learn from them. Dora, our professor, is very good and because we’re with only three, it’s almost like having private lessons. On the 23rd we have the final test for this level. Lots of irregular verbs and their conjugations to learn and apply…
Since arriving in Colombia and starting the course I understand more Spanish, and my speaking ability is improving as well. And there’s 2.5 months left to practice! Also, I’ve been joining Adriana to yoga class which is a great listening practice in itself, because the teacher speaks nice and slow. Apart from having a great (and much needed) workout it is really nice to realize that I am already able to recognize and understand a lot more of the vocab, verbs and grammar than I did last week.
EAFIT is a university with lots of facilities and green. Amongst others they have a great library and an outside pool (YEH!). I go there by bus (an experience in itself that I’ll describe in another post later) or sometimes I can get a ride with Andres or Adriana on their way to work.
It is kind of funny to be ‘back at school again’, it makes me feel really young and sometimes old at the same time. It’s nice to realize that I’m not as green as 10 years ago anymore though. Today I was a guest speaker at the course that Adriana teaches where I spoke about living, working and running a business in Japan, with a short Q&A session with the students afterwards. It was fun and went well.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Hello, my name is
We meant to post this one a while back but didn’t get a chance to do so. Somehow it’s hard to be disciplined and sit down to organize the pictures we’ve already got. Heh…
Anyway, in preparation for our trip we figured it would be fun and practical to make Tshirts with our names on it. Good chance to use the Tshirts-kun we’ve got (a fabulous screen-printing machine for Tshirts). We mainly wear the shirts when we do the volunteer work or when we meet a group of new faces, so they know what to call us. Eight years experience of hearing people deal with the challenge of pronouncing my name bears fruit! We figured out the best way to phonetically spell my name for Spanish speakers. 
It is: Bre-jjj-che.
Monday, April 14, 2008
Volunteering – Saciar #3
Today I went to a suburb called Paris, located near Maruchenga but higher up on the hill. Around here, the higher up you go, the more accentuated the poverty seems to be (as far as I’ve seen it’s usually the other way around…). Like the other places I visited, the children are friendly, keen to try origami and learn how to make figures and at the end of the session always ask when we are coming back.
Like the other centers, the children are required to attend school in order to receive breakfast and lunch. School here is only from 7am until 11:30am for the children attending in the morning and from 12:00 Noon to 4:30pm for the children attending the afternoon session. The children that I work with attend school in the afternoons. The aim of bringing them to the center is not only to keep them off the streets but to offer them a more caring environment which they often lack at home.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Volunteering - Casa de la Chinca
La Casa de la Chinca is a non-profit organisation founded in 1961 with the aim of protecting girls and who have been abandoned by their families or whose life may be in danger. All the girls admitted to “La Chinca” are referred to by Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar, ICBF, the social services office in Colombia.
The patron saint of Colombia is Nuestra Señora de Chiquinquira (Our Lady of Chiquinquira). The name Chinca is the local abbreviation of Chiquinquira and this is how Casa de la Chinca got its name.
Today we ventured into the south western part of the city looking for “La Chinca”. Even though we went there by bus, the journey was without any incidents (for Colombian standards ) except for the fact that we got a bit lost. We managed to find our way again and found the place before the daily afternoon shower.
At “La Chinca”, we met Lina who showed us around the place and introduced us to some of the girls. We also discussed the schedule and type of activities we will be doing during our time with them. We will start by making post cards with all the girls in the center which, we will take back to Tokyo for postage from there. More later…
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Volunteering - Saciar #2
Because Brechtje has her Spanish course, I will be by myself to do the volunteering work at Saciar for the next 2 weeks.
Today day I went to a suburb called Vallejuelos. Here, Saciar helps 155 children and 20 elderly people.
Vallejuelos is situated on the north-western hills of Medellin and like many things in Colombia is a place of contrasts. The makeshift homes that litter the slopes of the mountain are in sharp contrast to the “metro cable”, a modern cable card less than a month old; designed to connect the people from this area to the “Metro” system.
I found the children here more distant and more difficult to control than at the previous place. As Beatriz explained later, the children usually reflect in their behavior what they see and experience at home, at school and on the street. Underneath that, they are still grateful and very sweet kids in need of love and affection.
Volunteering - Saciar #1
This morning, after a ferocious cab ride and a couple of stops on the (very clean and modern!) metro, we arrived at Fundacion Saciar, where we met up with Beatriz Vega. She works there as a psychologist. Every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday morning from 8:15 to about 13:00 we will be joining Beatriz on her rounds to the various templo comunal (communal space).
We went to visit an area called Maruchenga in the northern part of Medellin, a hilly area with quite steep and narrow streets. So much so that I was surprised when the little Mazda 626 we were traveling in, managed to negotiate all of the near-vertical climbs and sharp corners.
In Maruchenga Saciar helps 90 children aged 4 to 14, by providing them with food and educational activities. Also joining us was Marcela, a university student who helps the kids with basic math and writing skills once a week.
Upon arrival at the communal space, a group of children came running to the car to greet us. We were promptly introduced to the sisters (nuns) running this place as the ‘newlyweds from Tokyo who are here on their honeymoon to help out”. It seems that because of this we have acquired some sort of “celebrity status” not only among the people of the foundation but with everyone at the communal space.
Most of the children warmed up to us from the start, especially to Brechtje for being one of the very few foreigners they have ever seen. We received many hugs and kisses right away.
Together with Marcela we guided a class of twelve 6 to 11 year-olds. The kids enthusiastically showed us around. Marcella introduced us and we showed them where Japan and Colombia are, by pointing out their locations on the map. Most of them never heard of a country called Japan before, and once they found out that Brechtje comes from Holland, and understands and speaks only a little Spanish, they thought it was hilarious and started asking lots of questions, like “how do you say this and that in English?”… “What is my name in English?”…!
In preparation of the volunteering activities we brought origami paper with us from Japan and practiced until we mastered a couple of figures. Today we make windmills with the kids and decided to combine the folding of the paper with a lesson in geometry by introducing shapes, line types, etc. After a slow start they got the hang of it and soon were asking for more origami sheets to make windmills for their little brothers and sisters back home. Origami is a big hit!
Time flew by and we were invited to join the children for a humble but nutritious and tasty lunch. Lots of fun again, lots of questions again. And we even learnt a little bit of sign language, as some of the kids are deaf.
Tomorrow Brechtje will start her Spanish course and I will join Beatriz to another area…