Wimake

January 4 – January 10

     Happy Epiphany! I didn’t exactly celebrate any normal way, but I did other exciting things toward the beginning of the week, in addition to attending Mass to celebrate the 3 Kings’ arrival. I met with another volunteer on Sunday to talk about Wiwa Tours and Fundación Dumuna and projects she hopes they’ll be able to work on or continue. She mentioned a lot of different awesome ideas for the future, but I think my main goal working with them for now will be to make her projects sustainable as quickly as possible. The next day, we had a “Cheeze-It” party at another volunteer’s apartment, where we all brought “kid food” and enjoyed eating macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, a fruit rainbow, and way too many Cheeze-Its and Oreos (with milk, of course).

     Friday and Saturday were a crazy adventure. Two other volunteers, three young indigenous ladies, and I took a jeep 3 hours, through and past Minca, to La Tagua at the top of a nearby mountain. From there, we hiked 3 hours down into Wimake, stopping to pick guavas, drink water, and pick our way across waterfall pools along the path. We finally reached Wimake, which is a beautiful little village with grass-roofed mud huts and a concrete school building. Children kept peeking out at us from behind the huts and we said, “Sungwi” (hello, spelled “Spanglish” phonetically), one of the few words we know in Dumuna, many, many times. One of the volunteers took pictures of the roofing materials that her fundraising project had helped purchase for the school and, that night, we stayed in hammocks in one of the two classrooms.

     Saturday, we said, “Zenzhiguaru” (thank you, spelled “Spanglish” phonetically), to everyone and hiked 5 hours back up the mountain, which was a very slow trek, especially for me. I was amazed to watch the 3 young ladies in our group practically fly up the mountain and patiently wait for me as I urged them to just keep moving because I knew how slowly I was climbing compared to them. We stopped partway up the mountain at a nice woman’s house and she gave us water and orange limones. Reaching the top of the mountain was a wonderful relief and, at least for now, I feel like I can do anything.

- “This is not the United States.” That’s a translated paraphrase from a policeman in Santa Marta. And he’s right – Colombia is not the United States. It’s different here, so keep that in mind if at any point you need to interact with law enforcement officials, government officials, journalists, or anyone else you learn about interacting with during Peace Corps training.

- Although most of the used clothing stores and stalls in Santa Marta are in an off-limits neighborhood, there are a few stalls in the Centro – you just have to find them. They’re tucked back deep inside a street market you can walk into from Avenida Ferrocarril. If you want to find the stalls, though, you’ll probably need someone from Santa Marta to show you where they are.

- There are many amazing adventures to be had, wherever your site placement takes you. Always be sure to ask permission before going anywhere particularly adventurous and don’t forget to send in your whereabouts before departure!