Training Days

Dear friends and family,

Where to begin?  It’s been 2 weeks since we arrived in Colombia.  Two weeks in Colombia and we’ve spent very little time outside of the hotel.  Although we are Peace Corps Response volunteers, because of the unique situation in Colombia, we are required to participate in a 3-week long training process.  Every day we sit through sessions regarding safety and security, health and vaccinations (shots for everyone!), and teaching methodologies and resources.  We all look at the training as an unnecessary, bureaucratic evil, but one that we’re willing to deal with in order to have the financial and security support of Peace Corps. 

Our experiences outside the classroom have been really positive.  The worst elements of Latin American culture are surprisingly absent here.  The staring, cat-calls, harassment, super high levels of privatized security (ie guys with guns), are minimal here.  I can walk down the street, go shopping, take the bus, do almost everything without feeling too out-of-place or foreign.  A girl in our group commented yesterday that she was almost missing the “movie star affect” that she’d become used to in her last assignment in the Dominican Republic.  It’s not completely gone, but neither is it completely overwhelming.  Another pleasant surprise.  I spend most of my evenings in the central park here in town, meeting people, talking, getting to know the city and occasionally playing volleyball.  I’ve made some great friends with amazing insights into Colombian culture.

Every day the temperature hovers between 75-95 and is sunny.  It hasn’t rained here yet but we’ve been warned to be careful when it does.  The city streets turn into flood-rivers (“arroyos”) that can sweep cars away.  Signs posted along the worst streets depict water lines and a human skull: “Don’t cross the arroyo. Arroyos kill!”  The rule of thumb is that the higher the curb, the worse the flood-rivers can get there.  Some curbs are nearly 3-feet high.  Who would have thought that the scariest thing I would face in Colombia would be the rain!  J

This Friday we finish training and move to our work-sites.  I will be working in an ‘educational institute’ in Cartagena.  The institute is similar to a technical school for students in 10^th and 11^th grades.  Students from all over the city can choose to take classes there in the afternoon.  The institute teaches English, technology, craftsmanship, etc.  I’m really curious to see how it works.  Last Wednesday we found out where we would be going and I couldn’t be more thrilled about moving to Cartagena! 

That’s everything for now.  Cheers to new adventures!  With love from Barranquilla,

Micah