More costeño weeks

August 2 – August 15

     There were no classes on Monday. On Thursday, classes were cancelled in the morning due to a lack of water at the school. In the afternoon, I went on a surprise trip with one of my counterparts to another school for emprendimiento (entrepreneurship, which is taught in many schools here) training. Friday, we celebrated the Battle of Boyacá, so surprise, there were no classes. On Sunday, there was no water or electricity at my house for most of the day and my English class was cancelled. On the upside, I had lots of time to do other things, like cook, do laundry, catch up on work, and rest. I also had a chance to visit with a few volunteers who were in Santa Marta on Saturday, so that was quite lovely.

- If someone at your school can let you know when classes are cancelled, try to get on their email, phone call, or WhatsApp list. Especially if you live far away from your school, this will make your life much easier.

- Having no water or electricity makes me extremely thankful for battery-powered alarms and being able to sleep on the floor. Do bring a battery-powered alarm clock (or something else that works for that purpose) and don’t bring anything to sleep on the floor (unless you really want to), but do acquire something culturally appropriate for sleeping on the floor (yoga mat, camping sleeping mat, bamboo mat, etc.) once you get to your site if you happen to be somewhere extremely hot.

- When the power goes out and houses here get really hot, Colombians tend to hang out in places that have air conditioning, like malls. Of course, we live in a city, so if you’re in a pueblo, somewhere in the shade can also work quite well. If you’re in a pueblo, I hope that the people you live with also thought to have well-ventilated, cooler houses. Considering the number of times we have power outs even in the city, samarios probably should have thought of that, too, and many did…before concrete became popular…