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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 postcards 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…
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Volunteering - Organisacion Saciar
Today we met with Beatriz from “Saciar”, a local food bank which distributes all donations it receives from industries in and around Medellin to other local organizations, which in turn distribute it to really poor families.
Saciar also runs a soup kitchen program where they offer breakfast and lunch to needy children in 11 marginal areas of Medellin. The children in these areas are often victims of physical and emotional abuse and in many cases lack any form of TLC and affection.
It is here where we will be helping out by spending time with them. Tomorrow will be our first visit to one of the “templo comunal” (a church which doubles up as a community center). More later…
Sunday, April 06, 2008
City of Eternal Spring
It’s a lovely day outside, birds are singing, a nice breeze comes through the open windows, and everywhere we look it’s green with mountains in the background. We are in Medellin, city of eternal spring and our home for the coming 6 weeks. With rainy season in April. Haha, nice timing of us. But it’s nothing like the muggy tsuyuu of Japan. It just means that the whole day it’s nice fresh sunny weather with only a couple of hours of a good shower in the afternoon.
We’re staying with our friends Andres and Adriana and their baby girl Maria del Mar. Lucky us. They live in the best part of town, have a really nice apartment, and this afternoon we will join them to visit the farm where Andres’ parents live. They have cows and horses. I will learn to ride a horse for the first time!
Food here is wonderful, we just had lunch with home-cooked frigoles con arroz (beans with rice), chicharon (=deep fried fat that I personally don’t enjoy, but everybody else certainly does!) and patacones (fry banana). We’ve also been enjoying various types of arepas. Yum.
The jetlag is wearing off and we’re pretty much settled into the local rythm of waking up at 6am. This morning M and I took a walk to explore the area. There’s some steep and hilly roads here so that was a good excersize. Yesterday we went for a stroll as well and took Maria del Mar with us. Visited the (very up-market) supermarket and discovered many Dutch cheezes!!!
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Houston we have a problem!
We have a lift-off but it wasn’t smooth…
After a 1.5 hr delay out of Narita we were finally on our way to adventure. 11.5 hrs later we landed in Houston, to transfer to our flight to Bogota.
For reasons only known to Mr. Bush and his team of security advisors, anyone landing on USA territory, regardless of their final destination, must clear customs, go through security checks and then when leaving of course the departure process (e.g. more security checks). No exception for us, even though we were only in transit. A ‘lovely’ experience which lasted 1.5 hrs and involved queueing multiple times waiting to be photographed, fingerprinted and bag-searched while not wearing any footwear.
While waiting in the queue for the departure security check, it became pretty clear that it was going to be impossible to make the flight. And judging by the many complaints we heard arounds us, we were certainly not the only ones…
After a sprint to our gate the plane had indeed already taken off. We´d missed boarding it by only 13 minutes. GRRRrrrreat.
With only one flight a day that meant we were stuck in Houston, Texas. Thankfully the lady at the service counter was very helpful and booked us on next day´s flight and provided us with coupons for hotel, dinner and breakfast.
Staying on the positive side, we figured we would go and see a bit of Houston but as it turned out the hotel was somewhere in the outskirts of town. Sooooo we resigned to eating hamburgers for dinner and watching NYPD re-runs until we fell asleep. The room was just like in the movies, as was everybody we observed over dinner, so it was quite entertaining actually. Envision hearing country music, strong accents, and sizeable Americans eating hamburgers. Very stereo-typical, but true!
Lessons learnt:
1] If at all possible, do NOT fly somewhere with the USA as a transfer hub.
For all consequenses described above. And also because for some reason, everytime we depart USA grounds we get “randomly selected” by the front security guy computer for a thorough frisking session.
2] Always ask for a wake-up call. Especially when you’re severely jetlagged…
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Colombia - Would you take the risk?
I found this fun clip about my home country. We are definitely taking the risk.
Make sure you watch it fully (or risk missing the point). Enjoy. 