I
put my mind to it and I feel better already! I know that I was not 100 percent
but I went to the festival. Since I had the ticket already I felt I had more of
a reason to go. How can I miss out on the first alternative music festival ever in Santa Marta?
This is history in the making and I wanted to be a part of it. I
went to the festival on my own. I asked people how to get places and I went about my journey. I took a cab to a bus station that goes to Mamancana (a town). I bought a roundtrip ticket and waited
for the bus to get full to head out to La Reserva Mamancana. I met up with some
of the volunteers at the entrance and we went right in. It was at such a
beautiful location, on the mountain top with a beautiful ocean view. I was so happy
that I made it out there that I completely forgot how sick I was the day before because I felt great.
The festival was amazing with different music groups from Colombia and other countries. The famous colombian bands were Bomba Estereo, Monsieur
Periné and Voodoo Soldiers among others.
I loved it. I felt like I was in a
haze, like my surroundings were dancing with the music, moving with the wind
and sounds. It started raining in the midst of it all and we were all just
dancing away in the rain. Then it was cold but we let the breeze enter the
pores of our skin and kept on dancing.It was such an amazing night! This is the first year that they do The
SierraMar Festival and hopefully it continues in the years to come for all the
people in Santa Marta. I am very grateful to have been a part of the
inauguration of this festival!
I
am so sick. Literally sick to my stomach. Last night we had dinner at Claudia’s
apartment with all the volunteers. Claudia is a Colombian woman that rents out
two rooms to foreigners. At the moment, Naomi and Charlotte are living there
and they wanted to have a potluck so they made tofu for everyone. Will and Rob made some delicious appetizers, little crunchy pieces of bread with tomatoes and cheese on them. So good! Cerys and I decided to make desert. We went to
Olimpica (a supermarket) to buy ingredients for Banofee Pie, an english dessert. Some of the ingredients were not available so we had to improvise with colombian products. We also celebrated Wills birthday!
Banofee Pie in the making!
All done :)
The
dinner was delicious. I ate the whole thing and it was amazing. After a great
feast we went to El Mirador in Taganaga. El Mirador is a small dance club
where you may drink, dance and have a good time with an amazing view of the ocean. The
night started off pretty well. We were all having a great time until I started
feeling sick. I went to the restroom and vomit everything that I ate. I have no
idea what made me sick but it was not pretty. I had some water with lime that a colombian girl recommended, which
made me feel a little better but I was not myself. Today everyone is at the SierraMar Festival and I am
here in my hotel room feeling horrible. We had already bought tickets to the festival this
week for both Saturday and Sunday so hopefully I rest it out today and wake up feeling better
to go to the festival tomorrow. I have not eaten anything and I do not have any
urges to do so. I have been drinking Powerade. I also took a Dolex
(similar to Tylenol) for the fever and headache that is taking over my life
right now. I am going to put my mind to it and wake up feeling great tomorrow.
Nap time. : (
It
is Sports Day! On Fridays we do not have classes, instead all of the kids that
come to the school throughout the week enjoy a day off to play sports and have
a good time. Today we had a teacher meeting at 1pm at the school to discuss
some ideas for the foundation. Most of it was lesson planning. Finally at 3pm it was time for some fun! We gathered
all the kids at the pitch. I took responsibility of the little ones and did some improvisation. I remembered all the games that I used to play with the Gainesville
Soccer Academy and tried doing it with them. We played red light green light, simon
says, and "El Lobo". They actually taught me how to play "El Lobo" (The Wolf). We
all held hands and went around in a circle singing, “Juguemos en el bosque
mientras el lobo esta. El lobo esta?” (let’s play in the forest while the wolf
gets ready) then el lobo would answer with what he/she was doing. In other words, the
wolf was getting ready to go outside to chase the kids. Once the wolf answered that it was heading out the door, we all had to
start running away from it and whoever the wolf tagged became the new wolf.
The
older kids played kickball and soccer. They always want to play soccer so we
have to hide the ball until it is that time because if not, they will ignore the teachers and just start playing. They climbed trees, ran everywhere
and picked up anything to play with it. For some reason, there is Styrofoam just
lying around in the barrio and the kids pick them up and play with them. They have such an imagination. It was such a fun
day! It felt great being outdoors playing with the kids.
