Painting in Monte Cristo

May 31 – June 6

     Over the weekend, I was in Minca helping the volunteer there paint one of her school’s campuses, in Monte Cristo, which was about a 45-minute walk up the mountain from her town. The school is about 1.5 rooms – a classroom and a “technology” room – and a patio with a not-quite-finished-yet bathroom and an open area to play or do just about anything that requires an open space outside. We met my friend’s counterpart at the school and figured out that we would paint the outside of the building and inside of the classroom. Slowly, more and more people showed up from the community and soon, we had a lot of help! In fact, we had so much help that the whole school was painted in 4 hours. This. Is. Peace Corps.

https://oistecolombia.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/fresh-coat/

     On another successful note, oh my goodness, I finally have a planning schedule with teachers at my school! Setting up times to plan with teachers has been kind of a mess, but this week, I got as much planning done as I could with the teachers in 1^st through 3^rd grade. Some of us just got through this month, but others got as far as October! Now, let’s see how many of our plans we can carry out.

     Happy Birthday to me! I feel like I’ve been celebrating my Birthday all week! My US mom keeps sending me adorable e-cards and I made brownies to share with everyone at our host family meeting on Saturday – the meeting was canceled, but I still found ways to share my Birthday brownies with people! On top of that, my US parents had a cake and a soft Birthday bear sent to my house and my neighbors sang “Happy Birthday” to me.

- The best projects are created and spearheaded by Colombians, which is probably why my friend’s project in Monte Cristo went so well. All she had to do was make sure the supplies got from Minca to the school. The main campus bought the supplies and the community did most of the painting. Applause to everyone in Minca and Monte Cristo for a job very, very well done!

- I may have mentioned this before, but although Colombia’s international mail system isn’t very good, their national mail system is. My parents sent me birthday presents and cake from companies in Santa Marta and everything got to my house exactly when it was supposed to. So, if a loved one or friend back home wants to send you something, consider suggesting that they use a local company to do so, if such a company exists at your post.

- There are three kinds of cake in Colombia – cake, tres leches cake, and pound cake. The first one is not good, so ignore that. The second two are amazing. Don Jacobo, the company that made my birthday cake, makes amazing pound cakes – the one my parent’s sent me was as big as the cake my mom usually makes for my birthday, but took twice as long to eat because it was so rich! And tres leches cake is also rich and delicious and definitely not something to be missed in Colombia!

1st Site Visit

May 24 – May 30

     Happy Pentecost! Sunday of this week was a special religious day for those who speak multiple languages, since that’s the day Catholics celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, which allowed them to speak the Word of God in many different languages. The celebration here, like most places, was a quiet one, but knowing I’m now one of those people who can communicate in more than one linguistic culture was exciting and made me feel blessed.

     Thursday was my first site visit, which means that someone from the Peace Corps office came to see how my projects are going and how life is in my site. We started at school and met with my principal, as well as several teachers, so he could re-explain what my job is and what I can do as a Peace Corps volunteer. I definitely appreciated his ability to explain my purpose without committing me to a million more things, while still saying that I could do more than what I’m currently doing for them. We went to Vital, a vegetarian restaurant in town, for lunch, and then stopped by Wiwa Tour to have roughly the same conversation, but more informally. Now, I’m excited for everything and I hope I’ll get more projects going soon.

- Hummus: In a food processor (or bowl, if you’re going to mash it), combine cooked chickpeas, olive oil, garlic, lime juice, salt and pepper, all to taste. Blend, adding water until your hummus reaches a consistency you like. You can also add roasted red pepper or paprika or anything else you like.

- Costeños Saludables is a Facebook page and a blog run by a Peace Corps volunteer who lives on the Coast of Colombia. She has lots of amazing recipes that use locally available ingredients. Some of those recipes include limonada de coco ice cream, chocolate pancakes, and chewy chocolate coco cookies. The link to her blog is this: https://costenossaludables.wordpress.com .

- Remember how I mentioned personal goals earlier? Well, this week, for the first time ever, I jogged a mile without stopping to walk or take a break. That’s such a little accomplishment compared to my friends who run six miles every day, but it’s a big deal for me. Like with everything in Peace Corps, little successes make the biggest difference.

- While we’re talking about little happy moments, this week was full of them. We have a new teacher in second grade and she seems nice and very capable. A stranger on the street said, “Dios te bendiga”, to me as we passed. One of my teaching counterparts introduced me to a potential counterpart for environmental projects. And the person who came from the office for my site visit said the restaurant we went to for lunch had some of the best vegetarian food he’d eaten.

- Green bean fries: Wash and trim as many green beans as you’re going to use. Set up your breading stations in three bowls. Put ½ cup flour, salt, and pepper in the first bowl. Put 2 eggs in the second bowl. Put 1½ cups bread crumbs, onion or garlic powder, and cayenne or red pepper flakes in the third bowl. Roll each green bean through bowls 1 through 3 and place on a buttered sheet. Bake at 220 degrees C or 425 degrees F for 15 minutes.

- Garlic dipping sauce for green bean fries: Combine ¼ cup light mayonnaise, sour cream, cream cheese, or Greek yogurt with chopped, roasted garlic, olive oil, mustard, salt, and pepper.

In-Service Technical Training

May 17 – May 23

     I went to school on Monday only to find out there was no school because Monday was a festivo, which was fine with me, since I knew I’d be spending the rest of the week at training, anyway. Training was informative and a nice way to take a break from Colombian culture and being “on” all the time, while introducing our school counterparts to our “American with a dash of Colombian” culture. We talked about Peace Corps’ objectives and how to fix problems at our schools through communities of practice, as well as 21^st century skills (considered important for all students to be successful in work and life in the modern day), and how to teach using centers. We had some time to plan our own projects, too, which was productive – even if the project my counterpart and I planned doesn’t actually happen, at least she’ll have some new ideas for teaching “school” words in English for the future. The last day, we went over project-based learning and classroom management. The counterparts were done then and the volunteers stayed to discuss changes to our travel policy, which recently got a bit stricter and more confusing. And of course, the best part was just visiting and hanging out together – I’m so glad I got to see everyone and they’re all doing well.

- My Colombian church’s patron saint is María Auxiliadora, who is apparently a very common patron of churches around here. We celebrated her feast day on Saturday starting at 0500 with a procession, a Rosary, and Mass.

- Watching our counterparts’ reactions to the appearances and, especially, skin tones and ethnicities of some of our volunteers was fascinating and wonderful, knowing that we were expanding their idea of what an American looks like. Many of the counterparts seemed to come with the idea that Americans were White with different colors of hair and eyes. But our volunteers are of many backgrounds and some are even native Spanish speakers. My counterpart even whispered to me asking if one of our volunteers (who is bilingual and of Mexican heritage) was the principal of her school because she was so well spoken in Spanish. Peace Corps’ Goal 2 is to bring American culture to the people we serve, so it made me feel good to know that, just by existing, we’re expanding our counterparts’ ideas about who we are as a country and culture