Volunteering Day One

The streets of old town Cartagena are narrow, one way roads lined with colorful, textured buildings that have railings and balconies and carefully pruned flower pots.

The town is a maze; every block the same yet different with tourists, locals, and vendors selling everything from fruit and fried food to necklaces and t-shirts. They roll their little carts down the streets among the people promising the "best price." 

It is colorful. Really colorful.

 You may not be able to tell, but I actually was not painted. Er...I guess I was. Painted by the sun.

After a morning orientation Monday, some friends and I headed to el centro in a taxi. We can take the 10 minute ride for  $3, split between however many we can convince the driver to let us fit in the car- usually no more than four. Seventy-five cents each for an air conditioned ride.

 

In the center, we browsed the shops that were amazingly just as expensive as in the states. But unlike the states, the sellers are easily convinced. After just a few minutes of entertaining bargaining, we convinced a man to go from 60,000 pesos down to 30,000 on a t-shirt. All it took was pretending we were going to leave because 32,000 was too expensive. I still think we paid a little much.

Back at the volunteer house, we had a volunteer meeting to discuss different projects, ideas, suggestions, etc. and decided where we would all be going Tuesday morning. 

The placements differ every day, so to start out the volunteers - each either teaching English or sports or simply playing with kids - split between Manea and Funvivir. One being a drug rehab center, and the other cancer patients.

My half of the volunteers, headed to work with kids fighting addictions, piled into a overly air conditioned van and drove an hour through Colombian suburbs...and then to the outskirts of Cartagena and the middle of nowhere.

We passed beautiful grassy fields and the typical tropical view of large palm trees and giant green foliage.

Once there, we had a beautiful view of Cartegena from a distance. The photo doesn't begin to do it justice.

The first half of the day was a little abnormal becuse the kids were having a meeting later and had to clean the whole camp. We spent the morning helping clean and occasionally taking breaks to watch a fellow volunteer dance and sing with the four girls.

The rehab center is heartbreaking. I can't even being to imagine their lives. At first glance, you can never tell. You can't tell that the eager 14 year old boy was addicted. You can't begin to believe that the 26 boys and 4 beautiul girls - the teens that excitedly greet us and ask to play with us and for us to teach them English - come from incredibly broken homes and families.

After cleaning, a few volunteers led a CPR class. Everyone was so great, so willing to learn, and overly excited to act out scenarios in which they were dying. So many laughs.

After CPR, we had lunch...and took a nap...heat and teens (especially that many teen boys) are exhausting!

After an hour break, the teens started to come back...

And we split again into two groups - teaching English, and sports. It absolutely amazed me how willing to learn everyone was.

I worked on English with two teen girls, teaching pronunciation, animals, and colors. Such sweet hearts. One specifically, because her name is Elizabeth and that's my middle name. So fun. And in exchange, they even taught me some Spanish. :)

Tomorrow, I will be going to a community project with three or four others to teach English to adults. Pretty excited, especially since they will all be there by choice. It is so much easier, and so much more fun to teach people who is willing to learn. :)