Colombia Sin Fronteras Day 1

I could not sleep the whole night and I do not know if it was because I was nervous or excited or both. I kept looking at the time hoping it would be 9 am soon. When it was about that time, I finally got ready and went out the door. I asked the guy in the lobby to call me a cab, which got there in two minutes, and I went on my way. I told the cab driver to take me to Kra 4 y Calle 26. The taxi fare anywhere in Santa Marta is always 4,000 COP but after 9pm it is 5,000 COP. If you go outside of Santa Marta then they start charging more depending where you go.

I met with Cerys and Naomi and flagged down a bus that said "Aeropuerto". There aren't actual bus stops, you can stand anywhere and just wave at the bus you want to get on. Most of the buses have a guy helping the driver collect passengers so they usually stop anyway to try and get you on their bus. We paid our fare of 1,200 COP. In Baranquilla the fare is 1,500COP and in Medellin the fare is 1,600COP. Also, when you want to get off the bus, in Barranquilla and Medellin you press a button on one of the railings that makes a buzzing sound and the driver will stop. In Santa Marta, you just yell at the driver to stop saying “por aqui” or “por aca” which means “around here” or you can also tell them to leave you at the corner by saying, “en la esquina”. The idea is that you have to tell them to leave you somewhere rather than pressing a button. The bus ride took about 15-20 minutes. We went out of Santa Marta, passed Rodadero, passed Gaira and got off at La Bomba Zuca, which is a gas station. We walked up to the foundation which takes about 10-15 minutes. As we started getting near the school, you start noticing how different it is. I had an idea of what I was getting myself into when I decided to come volunteer in Colombia but actually seeing it in person is heartbreaking.

The children ran to greet us and gave us all hugs. They call the teachers seño, just like at Pies Descalzos, which is short for "señor/a".  Cerys gave me a tour of the school that is actually a house they rent out and use it as the school. There are three rooms, one is the preschool room (the one I will be teaching in) and the other is for older kids or more advanced than preschoolers and the last room is used as the storage room. The living room is used for much older kids or more advanced. The house has a little kitchen and a small patio. She also showed me where they keep all the materials such as books, notebooks, pencils, etc and advised me that kids should never look for things in there on their own, they are to ask one of the teachers to get stuff for them to avoid missing materials. 

Sebas caring for his sick pet :(

Not much kids come in the morning because they are all in school. There are schools that the children attend but the education is poor. The idea of Colombia Sin Fronteras is to help them strengthen their skills. We are a support system, not a school. Eventually the idea is to become “Un Centro Cultural” a culture center, and teach the children music, theatre, dance, culture, etc but in order to do that, we want them to know the basics first, reading and writing.

After the morning session, we went to have lunch at El Rodadero. We walked back down to La Bomba Zuca to a cab station. They tried to charge us 5,000 COP but Cerys negotiated and told them she always paid 4,000COP. I guess I need to get used to this negotiating business in Colombia. We asked the cab driver to take us near the church in Rodadero and ate at a restaurant called La Casa de Eva where the volunteers always go eat because they serve lunch (comida corriente) for 6,000 COP! That includes soup, rice, chicken or steak, beans, salad, sweet plantain, and a drink! I asked for pollo a la plancha and to drink they gave us unlimited ice-cold agua de panela which we gulped down in two minutes. After a very satisfying lunch, we went to a nearby internet café and soaked up the air conditioning till we had to go back to the school. 

More children come in the afternoon as well as all the other volunteers. I met Libia, the CSF founder. Libia worked as a schoolteacher for more than 20 years but she did not like how the education system worked which is why she decided to make her own foundation. It was a great pleasure to meet her. I went in the preschool room with Rob and Jaime. The preschoolers range from five to nine year olds. I mainly wanted to observe to get an idea of how things were done. Jaime had to go because she was not feeling well but she left us alphabet tracing worksheets for the kids to do. They love worksheets and they finish them quickly to go on to the next one but they are not actually learning the letter or how to do the letter, they just trace and move on.

After much tracing and coloring, it was time to go home. Classes end at 4:30pm and the kids can go home. I would say it was a very successful day at CSF.