A cloud hangs over this city by the sea
I’m realizing that I’ve been very lucky in this experience. I’ve lived on the safe side of Cartagena, met the nice people of Cartagena, and have always had people looking out for me. But bad things do happen. Last week, at a friend’s house, Andres was robbed at gunpoint. Two men on a motorcycle came up to the house, stuck a loaded gun to the back of his head and said “Desconecta esa vaina, no griten, no se muevan…” (Disconnect that thing, don’t yell, don’t move) and then rode off with Andres’ laptop. It just figures that we were in a meeting for our project talking about the closing conference. You know, youth working towards bettering the image of Colombia and helping its citizens. Yea, rob them. We lost a ton of information from the project, not to mention 6 months of work he’s put towards his thesis. Yesterday, Rafa’s father was also robbed at gunpoint…one million pesos. Marilene, the trainee from Holland, has had stuff stolen 4 times from her own room, and the son of the owner of the foundation has come into her room twice in the middle of the night, drunk, with condoms in his hand. In Medellin, I was going to meet up with someone to go to some park at night, but I got her phone number wrong so I couldn’t go. That night, she was robbed with a knife held to her throat. I was almost at the point where I thought EVERYONE was wrong about how dangerous Colombia was, but I realize now that I’ve been very lucky. It is very different here, and I’ve been somewhat naïve and sheltered. When you’re around people that are so poor, they steal out of necessity. I respect the people that are selling phone minutes for 10 cents all day to pay for a dinner for their family. I don’t respect the assholes that don’t do shit all day and then rob a laptop to eat for a week. There are so many things that I see everyday, that I can’t even explain, and I wish I could take pictures of, but it’s not safe. My photos don’t show most of what I see on a daily basis. But there are some images in my head that I am sure I will never forget even if I don’t have photographic evidence. You just have to live it and be thankful for the experience.
Winding down...
My work is basically over, thank God. My classes all went really well and it was a really rewarding experience, but it was extremely stressful. I taught classes to a group of 20 parents about how to create a business plan, how to create a marketing plan, the life cycle of a product/business and how to promote it in each phase, and indicators of evaluation and control using basic accounting principles and other checkpoints. I gave up on trying to work with the teacher that was supposed to be helping me, because I would have been here 3 and a half months without ever doing anything, so I just pulled from stuff I learned in my intro business classes and tried to apply that to life in a third world country. I used videos, visual aids, activities, and competitions to really keep the parents involved and interested. Andres was a huge help to me with all of the classes…I don’t think I could have done it without him. The last day, my “students” filled out evaluations of the course, and it was really incredible. They were all so grateful for the work we’d done, saying things like “thousands and thousands of thank you’s”, “God bless you”, “You’ve given me hope for my future”, “You really put love into your work”, “Thank you for paying attention to us and helping us”, “We hope we can attend other classes with you” etc. The only complaint was that the workshop wasn’t longer.
Last week was the first round of breadmaking workshops at Harinas 3 Castillos. There were about 45 people there for the workshop. My 20 students were able to attend for free, while the other 25 had to pay to participate. Andres and I went to the first class, and it was great. Our group showed up early (I didn’t know that was possible in Colombia!) with notebooks open, ready to learn. I couldn’t attend the other sessions because I left for Medellin on Wednesday, but one of the mothers sent me an email telling me that the rest of the classes were really great, and that they learned a lot and everyone was really content and satisfied. She thanked us again and said she wanted to get together with the other parents and invite us to one of their houses to make bread/pastries for us to show us what they learned. It’s a cool feeling to know that because of something you did, a group of 20 people that didn’t know each other before want to work together and start a business together!
But now, I’m kind of lost again, because I have 2 or 3 weeks left of time to work, and once again, no guidance or work to do. I am really fed up with dealing with the teacher that was supposed to be helping me because she didn’t show up to a single one of my classes nor the breadmaking workshops, but now she’s asking me for copies of all of the work I did to show to the director of the school like it’s hers. She also scolded me for not asking her for permission before going to Medellin, but I told her that I didn’t feel it was necessary to ask her because she hadn’t been involved or interested in anything I’ve done up until now. I asked permission from my project director and the people I’d been working with. She just loves to create problems. I’m really frustrated about that right now, but it’s not really worth talking about. All part of the fun of an unstructured developmental AIESEC traineeship…
Anyways, I’ve mentioned it twice now, but I went to Medellin! I took an overnight bus by myself on Wednesday night to arrive in Medellin on Thursday morning at 6am. I had three phone numbers of people who knew I was coming. I called Ana…answering machine. I called Daniel…answering machine. I called Santiago…answering machine. I ended up waiting at the bus terminal for an hour and a half before I got a hold of Daniel, who told me to take a taxi to his apartment (which by the way is where Jason Hall stayed during his traineeship!!). He gave me the address, but somehow my taxi driver had no idea where he was going (neither did I) and I got an unplanned tour of the city. But I arrived just fine. Todo bien. I basically dropped my stuff off at Daniel’s house and hopped in another taxi to the University of EAFIT for another round of Global Village. More international food from the trainees from all over the world, aka strawberries and cream from the UK, treats from Bahrain, meatball soup from Bulgaria…and “grilled cheese” sandwiches from the US. I bought the bread, the butter, the cheese (tipo Americano), but turns out there was no way to grill them, so they just ended up being American cheese sandwiches…o well. Not quite as successful as my M&M cookies from the last Global Village, but people ate them nonetheless. Thursday night, I got to discover the wonder that is Parque Lleras…the sweetest barstrip I have ever seen in my life (not that I’ve seen many…but it puts my beloved State Street to shame!). Although I barely slept the night before, somehow I managed to stay out dancing until about 4am.
Friday was “día turístico.” I met up with a girl from Medellin and some people from AIESEC Manizales to explore the “city of eternal springtime.” It really is the most beautiful city I have ever seen in my life. It’s surrounded by mountains on all sides, and the weather really is perfect, like springtime all year long. It’s also very obvious that there’s more money in Medellin than Cartagena. It was much cleaner and more advanced. It’s the only city in Colombia with a metro. We rode the metro and the metrocable where we were able to get a view from above of the whole city and the poor houses built in the mountains. We ate bandeja paisa for lunch and then walked around downtown for a bit before returning home to get ready for the CHIVA DE AMOR! A chiva is basically a party bus. It comes equipped with a vallenato band and alcohol. Some have seats, some don’t. We had one of each. The chiva for Trainee Weekend in Medellin has a reputation for people starting off the night drinking and dancing and finishing off the night making out. Hence the name chiva “de amor.” I woke up the next morning with a hoarse voice from singing so much and a sore head, from a mix of hitting it on the ceiling of the lower chiva and from drinking too much. All in all a great night. It was cool because I got to meet a ton of Jason and Molly’s friends from their traineeship last summer! (It made me miss you guys so much…but you definitely made a huge impression down here!! )
Saturday we kicked off our day with a bucket of fried chicken and some aguardiente around 1pm and headed downtown for la Cabalgata (basically a huge horse parade). It was the start of the Feria de las Flores, a ten day flower festival in Medellin that draws people from all over. I didn’t actually get to see any of the flowers, because apparently all that starts this week. Saturday night, we went back to Parque Lleras for another round of drinking and dancing… cocaina rusa… (shot of vodka, chased with a lemon with half instant coffee and half sugar on top)
I woke up early on Sunday hoping I would get to see more of the city, but my Colombian companions decided not to roll out of bed until after noon, so I didn’t get much accomplished before hopping on another 13 hour bus ride back to hot, sticky Cartagena.
Now I’ve got about 20 days left, and I really can’t believe how fast this traineeship went. This weekend is my last one in Cartagena, so it better be packed with all of the stuff I said I was going to do but never did. Next weekend, I’m off to Sincelejo to visit Andres’s cousins and the following weekend to Tayrona!
